MENTAL    DEVELOPMENT 
IN   THE   CHILD   AND   THE   RACE 

METHODS  AND  PROCESSES 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

SOCIAL  AND  ETHICAL  INTERPRETATIONS  IN  MEN- 
TAL DEVELOPMENT:  A  Study  in  Social  Psychology. 
New  York  and  London,  Macmillans.  Fourth  Edition,  1906. 
Translated  into  French  and  German.  Awarded  Gold  Medal 
of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Denmark. 

DEVELOPMENT  AND  EVOLUTION.  Same  publishers. 
One  volume.  Uniform  with  MENTAL  DEVELOPMENT  and 
SOCIAL  AND  ETHICAL  INTERPRETATIONS.  1902. 

DICTIONARY    OF    PHILOSOPHY    AND  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Edited    (with    an    international    corps    of  contributors)    by 

J.  MARK  BALDWIN.      3  vols.  in  4  parts.  New  York  and 
London,  Macmillans.      1901-1906. 

THOUGHT  AND  THINGS,  OR  GENETIC  LOGIC :  A  Study 
of  the  Development  and  Meaning  of  Thought.  Vol.  I., 
Functional  Logic,  or  Genetic  Theory  of  Knowledge.  London, 
Sonnenschein ;  New  York,  Macmillans.  1906. 


MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

IN 

THE  CHILD  AND  THE  RACE 

METHODS  AND  PROCESSES 

BY 

JAMES   MARK   BALDWIN 
M.A.,  PH.D.,  HoN.D.Sc.  (OxoN.),  LL.D.  (GLASGOW,  ETC.) 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  IN  THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY; 

AUTHOR  OF  "  HANDBOOK  OF  PSYCHOLOGY,"   ETC. ;    CO-EDITOR  OF 

"  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  REVIEW  " 

WITH  SEVENTEEN  FIGURES  AND  TEN  TABLES 


THIRD  EDITION,  REVISED 
(.SEVENTH  PRINTING) 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1906 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1894  AND  1906, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  February,  1895. 
Reprinted  November,  1895;  December,  1896;  Septem- 
ber, 1898;  July,  1900;  February,  1903. 

Third  edition,  revised  throughout,  November,  1906. 


NortoooB  5«g« 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Ma»s.,  U.S.A. 


FILIOLIS    .    MEIS 


2052523 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

(ABRIDGED) 

IN  writing  this  book  I  have  had  rather  conflicting  aims.  It 
was  begun  as  a  series  of  articles  reporting  observations  on 
infants,  published  in  part  in  the  journal  Science,  1890-1892. 
In  the  prosecution  of  this  purpose,  however,  I  found  it  neces- 
sary constantly  to  enlarge  my  scope  for  the  entertainment  of  a 
widened  genetic  view.  This  came  to  clearer  consciousness  in  the 
treatment  of  the  child's  imitations,  especially  when  I  came  to 
the  relation  of  imitation  to  volition,  as  treated  in  my  paper  be- 
fore the  London  Congress  of  Experimental  Psychology  hi  1892. 
The  further  study  of  this  subject  brought  what  was  to  me  such  a 
revelation  of  the  genetic  function  of  imitation  that  I  then  deter- 
mined —  under  the  inspiration,  also,  of  the  small  group  of  writers 
lately  treating  the  subject  —  to  work  out  a  theory  of  mental  devel- 
opment in  the  child,  incorporating  this  new  insight. 

This  occupied  my  thought,  and  was  made  the  topic  of  my 
graduate  Seminar  in  psychology  at  Princeton,  in  1893-1894,  the 
result  being  the  conviction  that  no  consistent  view  of  mental 
development  in  the  individual  could  possibly  be  reached  with- 
out a  doctrine  of  the  race  development  of  consciousness,  —  i.e. 
the  great  problem  of  the  evolution  of  mind. 

I  then  fell  to  reading  again  the  literature  of  biological  evolu- 
tion, with  view  to  a  possible  synthesis  of  the  current  biological 
theory  of  organic  adaptation  with  the  doctrine  of  the  infant's 

development,  as  my  previous  work  had  led  me  to  formulate  it. 
vii 


viii  Preface  to  the  First  Edition 

This  is  the  problem  of  Spencer  and  Romanes.  My  book  is  then 
mainly  a  treatise  on  this  problem;  but  the  method  of  approach 
to  it  which  I  have  described,  accounts  for  the  preliminaries  and 
incidents  of  treatment  which  make  my  book  so  different  in  its 
topics  and  arrangement  from  theirs,  and  from  any  work  constructed 
from  the  start  with  a  'System  of  Genetic  Psychology'  in  view. 

For  this  reason  the  question  of  arrangement  was  an  excessively 
difficult  one  to  me.  The  relations  of  individual  development 
to  race  development  are  so  intimate  —  the  two  are  so  identical, 
in  fact  —  that  no  topic  in  the  one  can  be  treated  with  great  clear- 
ness without  assuming  results  in  the  other.  So  any  order  of 
treatment  in  such  a  work  must  seem  finally  to  be  only  the  least 
of  possible  evils. 

My  final  arrangement  of  chapters  presents,  however,  when  a 
patient  reader  is  in  front  of  the  page,  a  fair  degree  of  reason,  I 
think.  The  earliest  chapters  (I.  to  VI.)  are  devoted  to  the  state- 
ment of  the  genetic  problem,  with  reports  of  the  facts  of  infant 
life  and  the  methods  of  investigating  them,  and  the  mere  teasing 
out  of  the  strings  of  law  on  which  the  facts  are  beaded  —  the  prin- 
ciples of  Suggestion,  Habit,  Accommodation,  etc.  These  chapters 
have  their  own  end  as  well,  giving  researches  of  some  value, 
possibly,  for  psychology  and  education.  They  serve  their  pur- 
pose also  in  the  progress  of  the  book,  as  giving  a  statement  of 
the  central  problem  of  motor  adaptation.  Chapter  V.  gives  a 
detailed  analysis  of  one  voluntary  function,  Handwriting.  Then 
follows  the  theory  of  adaptation,  stated  in  general  terms  in  Chap- 
ters VII.  and  VIII.;  and  afterwards  comes  a  genetic  view  in 
detail  (Chaps.  IX.  to  XVI.)  of  the  progress  of  mental  development 
in  its  great  stages,  Memory,  Association,  Attention,  Thought, 
Self-consciousness,  Volition.  So  the  whole  is  a  whole,  the  theory 
resting  upon  an  induction  of  facts  (put  before  it)  and  supported 


Preface  to  the  First  Edition  ix 

by  the  deduction  of  facts  (put  after).  It  is  now  (3d  ed.)  divided 
into  four  parts,  '  Introduction,'  '  Experimental  Foundation,' 
'  Biological  Development,'  and  '  Psychological  Development.' 

The  book  really  represents,  therefore,  five  years  of  very  close 
work ;  and  the  distribution  of  the  topics  over  this  period  accounts 
for  the  fact  that  the  chapters,  in  many  instances,  include  in  more 
or  less  modified  form  articles  which  I  have  contributed  to  the 
reviews.  It  will  now  be  clear  that  all  were  written  in  the 
course  of  development  of  one  intellectual  impulse,  and  so  have 
their  only  adequate  presentation  and  justification  in  this  volume. 
I  am  indebted  to  the  editors  and  publishers  of  certain  journals 
for  this  present  use  of  some  of  the  material,  e.g.  Mind,  The 
Philosophical  Review,  The  Psychological  Review,  The  American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  The  Popular  Science  Monthly,  The  Century 
Magazine,  Science,  The  Educational  Review. 

There  are  certain  other  great  provinces,  besides,  which  I  find 
capable  of  fruitful  exploration  with  the  same  theoretical  prin- 
ciples. Of  course,  genetic  psychology  ought  to  lay  the  only  solid 
foundation  for  education,  both  in  its  method  and  its  results.  And 
it  is  equally  true,  though  it  has  never  been  adequately  realized, 
that  it  is  in  genetic  theory  that  social  or  collective  psychology 
must  find  both  its  root  and  its  ripe  fruitage.  We  have  no  social 
psychology,  because  we  have  had  no  doctrine  of  the  socius.  We 
have  had  theories  of  the  ego  and  the  alter;  but  that  they  did  not 
reveal  the  socius  is  just  their  condemnation.  So  the  theorist 
of  society  and  institutions  has  floundered  in  seas  of  metaphysics 
and  biology,  and  no  psychologist  has  brought  him  a  life-preserver, 
nor  even  heard  his  cry  for  help.  These  aspects  of  the  subject  I 
hope  to  take  up  in  somewhat  the  same  way  in  another  work,  already 
well  under  way,  to  bear  the  same  general  title  as  this  volume,  but 
to  be  known  by  the  sub-title,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations, 


x  Preface  to  the  First  Edition 

in  contrast  with  the  Methods  and  Processes,  by  which  this  book 
is  described  more  particularly  on  the  title-page.  It  will  endeavour 
to  find  a  basis  in  the  natural  history  of  man  as  a  social  being  for  the 
theory  and  practice  of  the  activities  in  which  his  life  of  education, 
social  co-operation,  and  duty  involves  him. 

Many  of  the  particular  points  of  view  of  this  proposed  work 
are  indicated  by  foot-notes  in  this  volume,  on  pages  where  the 
principles  discussed  strike  deeper  into  the  social  life.  Such  inti- 
mations are  especially  brought  out  in  Chapters  X.  to  XVI. 

The  classes  of  men  whom  I  hope  therefore  to  interest  are  first, 
of  course,  psychologists,  —  in  my  theories,  —  and  then  teachers 
and  writers  on  education,  —  in  the  outcome.  I  have  not  had  the 
latter  class  in  mind  as  much  in  this  book  as  I  do  in  the  later  one, 
for  obvious  reasons;  but  yet  I  hope  the  treatment  will  be  found 
untechnical  enough  to  profit  teachers  who  are  not  professed 
psychologists.  To  this  end  all  the  original  observations  and 
experiments  on  children  which  are  scattered  through  the  book 
are  gathered  in  a  list  in  Appendix  I. 

Then  there  are  the  biologists  —  one  almost  despairs  of  them ! 
Are  there  any  yet  born  to  follow  the  two  I  have  named  in  finding 
mind  as  interesting  as  life?  We  must  believe  that  the  future  is 
big  with  them,  —  and  the  near  future,  too.  But  if  any  biologist 
is  willing  to  listen,  he  may  care  to  recognize  in  the  chorus  of 
those  who  are  singing  the  praise  of  the  ruler  of  our  time,  the 
naturalist,  and  playing  to  him  on  instruments  —  the  tibia  of  the 
archaic  horse,  the  antennae  of  the  hymenoptera,  the  many  stops 
of  the  hydra's  legs  —  the  plaintive  note  of  one  who  but  tries  to 
interpret  the  wail  of  the  human  babe !  But  I  am  not  prepared 
to  dispute  the  point  with  any  of  my  readers  who  find  such  an 
expectation  quite  too  optimistic.1 

1  The  ten  years  since  this  was  written  have  brought  a  remarkable  change 
in  the  attitude  of  biologists  toward  psychology. 


Preface  to  the  First  Edition  xi 

There  is  one  point  in  the  range  of  the  great  topic  of  develop- 
ment itself  to  which  I  wish  to  refer,  in  order  to  avoid  misun- 
derstanding. I  believe  in  the  widest  possible  expansion  of  the 
idea  of  natural  history  as  applied  to  consciousness.  But  I  also 
believe  that  the  natural  history  question  is  not  the  same  as  the 
question  of  the  essence  or  nature  or  explanation  of  mind.  Phi- 
losophy has  its  problem  just  the  same,  however  consciousness 
arose,  and  no  amount  of  evolution  theory  can  settle  the  problem 
set  by  philosophy.  I  hope  to  take  up  this  question  of  '  origin 

vs.  nature'  later  on.1 

J.  M.  B. 
PRINCETON,  N.J.,  March,  1895. 

1  The  reader  may  now  compare  the  article  of  that  title  in  the  writer's 
Diet,  of  Philos.  and  PsychoL 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 

IN  passing  into  this  edition  this  book  is  celebrating  its  full  dec- 
ade. It  has  been  reprinted  now  seven  times  and  translated  into 
French  and  German,  and  the  demand  for  it  indicates  the  interest 
taken  in  genetic  discussions.  In  view  of  this  new  interest,  and 
of  the  need  of  it  —  the  need  of  bringing  into  psychology  the 
genetic  and  biological  points  of  view  —  for  which  the  book  origi- 
nally stood,  I  have  decided  to  leave  it  in  essentials  practically  as 
originally  written.  The  revision  has  been  mainly  in  matters  of 
details  of  fact,  and  of  exactness  of  exposition;  but  the  leading 
theories,  which  have  had  their  part  in  stimulating  newer  discus- 
sions, remain  about  as  originally  presented.1  They  are  now 
supplemented  by  the  later  volumes  of  the  series,  Social  and 
Ethical  Interpretations  (4th  edition,  1906),  Development  and  Evo- 
lution (1902),  and  the  first  part  of  the  treatment  of  Genetic 
Logic,  the  work  called  Thought  and  Things  (Vol.  I.,  1906).  I 
have  undertaken  to  prepare  a  single  volume  on  the  'Principles  of 
Genetic  Science,'  in  which  the  leading  ideas  of  this  series  of  books 
will  be  thrown  together  in  concise  and  reasoned  form.  In  that 
volume  the  net  outcome  of  the  whole  endeavour  will  be  estimated 
and  set  forth  in  relation  to  the  latest  literature  of  the  several 
sciences  to  which  these  earlier  books  respectively  relate. 

In  this  edition  the  changes  already  embodied  in  the  French 

1  The  longer  additions  are  to  be  found  in  Chap.  XV.  (on  Control,  and  on 
Attention),  Chap.  XVI.  (on  Pain  as  Sensation,  and  on  'Excessive'  Pain 
Reactions) ,  and  in  Appendix  C. 


xiv  Preface  to  the  Third  Edition 

and  German  versions  are  now  incorporated.  On  certain  pages, 
moreover,  on  which  topics  are  treated  of  which  later  thought  has 
developed  and  modified  the  views  expressed  reference  is  made  to 
the  publications  embodying  these  further  views.  This  is  especially 
the  case  with  the  'social'  matters  carried  further  in  Social  and 
Ethical  Interpretations;  with  the  biological  matters,  especially 
the  theory  of  evolution  by  organic  selection,  worked  out  in  the 
volume  Development  and  Evolution;  with  the  motor  theory  of 
general  notions  which  is  essentially  developed  and  also  restricted 
in  the  sections  on  '  General  Meaning '  in  Thought  and  Things, 
where  the  treatment  of  the  cognitive  operations  is  full  and  explicit. 
Readers  who  care  to  follow  out  any  of  these  matters  are  thus 
supplied  with  data  for  judging  of  the  writer's  more  extended 
views.  In  the  literary  citations  added  in  the  course  of  the  work  the 
reader  will  find  indications  of  personal  judgment  upon  the  newer 
publications.  I  cannot  refrain  from  making  more  specific  reference 
here,  however,  to  Principal  Lloyd  Morgan's  Habit  and  Instinct, 
Professor  Groos'  Play  of  Animals  and  Play  of  Man,  and  Professor 
Jennings's  Behaviour  of  Lower  Organisms.  In  these  books 
certain  of  the  positions  of  this  work  have  been  notably  confirmed, 

corrected,  and  advanced. 

J.  M.  B. 

JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY, 
BALTIMORE,  October,  1906. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER  I 

PACKS 

INFANT  AND  RACE  PSYCHOLOGY 1-33 

§  i.   Infant  Psychology:  Ontogenesis,  the  Genetic  Point  of  View  1-12 

§2.   Race  Psychology :  Phylogenesis 12-14 

§  3.   Analogies  of  Development :  Epochs  of  Development        .  14-19 
§  4.   Variations  in  Ontogeny :  Organic  and  Mental  Recapitula- 
tion      19-33 

CHAPTER  II 

A  NEW  METHOD  OF  CHILD  STUDY' 34-47 

§  I.   Critical:  Earlier  Methods 34-4° 

§  2.   Expository :  the  Dynamogenic  Method     ....  40-44 

§  3.   Formula  of  the  Dynamogenic  Method      ....  44~47 

PART   I.     EXPERIMENTAL  FOUNDATION 

CHAPTER  III 

DISTANCE  AND  COLOUR  PERCEPTION  BY  INFANTS  ....        48-55 

§  I.   Experimental :  Colour,  Distance 48-53 

§  2.   Critical :  Estimate  of  Results 53-55 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  RIGHT-HANDEDNESS 56-77 

§  I.   Experimental:  Arrangements  and  Results        .         .         .         56-63 
§  2.   Interpretation :    Neurological  and  Race  Considerations ; 

Modification  of  Formula  of  Method   ....        63-77 
xv 


xvi  Contents 

CHAPTER  V 

PAGES 

INFANTS'  MOVEMENTS 78-99 

§  I.  Descriptive:  Reflexes;  the  Child's  Drawings;  Rise  of 

Tracery  Imitation 78-88 

§  2.  Interpretation  of  Tracery  Imitation :  The  Origin  and 

Analysis   of  Handwriting 88-99 

CHAPTER   VI 

SUGGESTION 100-160 

§  I.   Definition  and  Criticism 100-104 

§  2.   Physiological  Suggestion  .......     104-109 

§  3.   Sensori-motor :  General,  Personality,  Deliberative  Sugges- 
tion          109-123 

§  4.    Ideo-motor :     Simple    Imitative   Suggestion,    Resume   of 

Suggestions  of  Infancy 123-128 

§  5.    Subconscious  Adult  Suggestion:  Tune-suggestion,  Influ- 
ence of  Dreams,  Auto-suggestion,  Sense-exaltation     .     128-135 
§  6.   Inhibitory  Suggestion :  Pain,  Control,  and  Contrary  Sug- 
gestion ;  Bashfulness 135-149 

§7.   Hypnotic  Suggestion :  the  Facts,  the  Theory  .        .        .     149-157 
§8.  The  Law  of  Dynamogenesis :  Habit  and  Accommodation     157-160 


PART   II.     BIOLOGICAL  GENESIS 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE  THEORY  OF  DEVELOPMENT 161-208 

§  i.  Organic  Adaptation  in  General 161-171 

§  2.  The  Current  Theory  of  Adaptation:    Darwin,  Spencer, 

Bain 171-193 

§  3.   Development  and  Heredity:   Neo-Darwinism  and  Neo- 

Lamarckism 193-197 

§4.  The  Origin  of  Consciousness 197-203 

§  5.  Outcome :  Habit  and  Accommodation      ....  203-208 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MOTOR  ATTITUDES  AND  EXPRESSIONS          .        .    209-248 
§  I.   General  View 209-211 


Contents  xvii 


§  2.  The  Theory  of  '  Emotional  Expression ' :  Applications  of 

Principles  of  Habit,  Accommodation,  Dynamogenesis  211-225 

§  3.   Hedonic  Expression  and  its  Law 225-226 

§  4.   Habitual  Motor  Attitudes :  Principles  of  Antithesis,  Asso- 
ciated Habits,  Analogous  Stimuli        ....  226-248 

CHAPTER  IX 

ORGANIC  IMITATION 249-275 

§  i.  The  General  Question 249-253 

§  2.  The  Neurological  Question 253-264 

§  3.  The  Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association         .         .  264-275 


PART  III.     PSYCHOLOGICAL  GENESIS 

CHAPTER  X 

CONSCIOUS  IMITATION  (BEGUN)  :  THE  ORIGIN  OF  MEMORY  AND 

IMAGINATION 276-305 

§  I.   General  Facts  and  Explanations 276-286 

§  2.  The  Origin  of  Memory  and  Association    ....  286-292 

§  3.   Assimilation  and  Recognition 292-302 

§  4.   Phylogenetic  Value  of  Memory  and  Imagination       .         .  302-305 

CHAPTER  XI 

CONSCIOUS  IMITATION  (CONTINUED)  :  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THOUGHT 

AND  EMOTION 306-331 

§  i.   Conception  and  Thought 306-314 

§  2.   Conception  as  Class-recognition 314-316 

§3.   Emotion  and  Sentiment :  Self  and  the  Social  Sense          .  316-331 

CHAPTER   XII 

CONSCIOUS  IMITATION  (CONCLUDED) 332-348 

§  i.   Classification 332-335 

§  2.   Plastic  Imitation       ........  335— 339 

§  3.   How  to  observe  Imitation  in  Children       ....  339—348 


xviii  Contents 


CHAPTER  xni 

PAGES 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  VOLITION 349-408 

§  I.  Analysis  of  Volition :  Deliberation,  Desire,  Effort     .        .  349-354 
§  2.  The  Typical  Case  of  Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child:  Per- 
sistent Imitation        ........  354—366 

§  3.   Phylogenetic 366-369 

§  4.   Special  Evidence      ........  369—404 

§  5.  Ontogenetic :  Variations  in  the  Rise  of  Volition       .        .  404-408 

CHAPTER  XTV 

THE  MECHANISM  OF  REVIVAL:  INTERNAL  SPEECH  AND  SONG     .  409-427 

§  I.   Internal  Speech  :  How  do  we  think  of  Words?         .         .  409-416 

§2.   Internal  Song :  How  do  we  think  of  Tunes?     .         .         .  416-419 

§3.   Pitch  Recognition:  How  do  we  know  Notes?          .        .  419-427 

CHAPTER  XV 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  ATTENTION 428-451 

§  I.   Voluntary  Attention 428-435 

§  2.   Reflex  and  '  Primary '  Attention 435~436 

§  3.  The  Development  of  Attention :   Sensori-motor  Associa- 
tion      436-448 

§  4.  Voluntary  Acquisition  and  Control 448-45 1 


PART  IV.     GENERAL  SYNTHESIS 

CHAPTER  XVI 

SUMMARY:  FINAL  STATEMENT  OF  HABIT  AND  ACCOMMODATION  .  452-467 

§  i.   Summary  of  Theory  of  Development         ....  452-456 

§  2.  Interaction  of  Habit  and  Accommodation         .        .        .  456-457 

§3.   Organic  Centralization :  Pain,  Attention  ....  457-467 


APPENDIX  B.    COLONEL  MALLERY  ON  SIGN  LANGUAGES         .  469-47 l 

APPENDIX  C    I  AND  II 471-473 

I.     Learning  from  Experience 471-472 

II.     Fluctuations  of  Attention 472~473 

INDEX  .  475-477 


MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 
IN   THE  CHILD  AND   THE   RACE 

METHODS  AND  PROCESSES 


MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT   IN    THE 
CHILD   AND   THE    RACE 


INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER   I 
INFANT  AND  RACE  PSYCHOLOGY 

THE  study  of  psychology  has  had  so  remarkable  a  de- 
velopment in  recent  years,  and  the  standpoint  from  which 
it  is  now  approached  is  so  unlike  the  point  of  view  of  older 
writers  on  mental  philosophy,  that  the  several  depart- 
ments which  it  now  comprises  stand  in  need  of  separate 
introductions ;  and  not  only  are  such  introductions  necessary 
for  purposes  of  exposition,  but  their  apologetic  function, 
though  reduced  to  a  minimum,  is  still  real.  The  expression 
'nursery  psychologist'  no  doubt  means  what  its  author 
intended  it  to  mean,  to  some  others  than  himself ;  and 
it  is  desirable  that  it  should  be  understood  by  the  educated 
public  as  a  badge  of  honourable  service  rather  than  as  a 
phrase  of  disparagement  and  discredit. 

§  i.  Infant  Psychology :  Ontogenesis 

No  doubt  we  owe  to  the  rise  of  the  evolution  idea  some- 
thing at  least  of  the  benefit  brought  about  by  what  we  may 
call  the  psychological  renaissance  of  the  last  twenty-five 


MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT   IN    THE 
CHILD   AND   THE    RACE 


INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER   I 

INFANT  AND  RACE  PSYCHOLOGY 

THE  study  of  psychology  has  had  so  remarkable  a  de- 
velopment in  recent  years,  and  the  standpoint  from  which 
it  is  now  approached  is  so  unlike  the  point  of  view  of  older 
writers  on  mental  philosophy,  that  the  several  depart- 
ments which  it  now  comprises  stand  in  need  of  separate 
introductions ;  and  not  only  are  such  introductions  necessary 
for  purposes  of  exposition,  but  their  apologetic  function, 
though  reduced  to  a  minimum,  is  still  real.  The  expression 
'nursery  psychologist'  no  doubt  means  what  its  author 
intended  it  to  mean,  to  some  others  than  himself ;  and 
it  is  desirable  that  it  should  be  understood  by  the  educated 
public  as  a  badge  of  honourable  service  rather  than  as  a 
phrase  of  disparagement  and  discredit. 

§  i.  Infant  Psychology:  Ontogenesis 

No  doubt  we  owe  to  the  rise  of  the  evolution  idea  some- 
thing at  least  of  the  benefit  brought  about  by  what  we  may 
call  the  psychological  renaissance  of  the  last  twenty-five 


2  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

or  thirty  years.  The  breadth  of  the  current  conception  of 
psychology  is  certainly  in  harmony  with  the  conceptions 
long  ago  current  in  other  departments  of  scientific  research; 
but  there  is  a  phase  of  this  broadening  of  psychological 
inquiry  strikingly  brought  out  only  when  interpreted  in 
the  light  of  evolution  doctrine.  This  is  what  we  may  call 
the  genetic  phase,  the  growth  phase.  The  older  idea  of  the 
soul  was  of  a  fixed  substance,  with  fixed  attributes.  Knowl- 
edge of  the  soul  was  immediate  in  consciousness,  and 
adequate ;  at  least,  as  adequate  as  such  knowledge  could  be 
made.  The  mind  was  best  understood  where  best  or  most 
fully  manifested;  its  higher  'faculties,'  even  when  not  in 
operation,  were  still  there,  but  asleep. 

Under  such  a  conception,  the  man  was  father  to  the 
child.  What  the  adult  consciousness  discovers  in  itself  is 
true,  and  wherein  the  child  lacks  it  falls  short  of  the  true 
stature  of  soul  life.  We  must,  therefore,  if  we  take  account 
of  the  child-mind  at  all,  interpret  it  up  to  the  revelations 
of  the  man-mind.  If  the  adult  consciousness  shows  the 
presence  of  principles  not  observable  in  the  child  conscious- 
ness, we  must  suppose,  nevertheless,  that  they  are  really 
present  in  the  child  consciousness  beyond  the  reach  of  our 
observation.  The  old  argument  was  this,  —  and  it  is 
not  too  old  to  be  found  in  the  metaphysics  of  to-day,  — 
consciousness  reveals  certain  great  ideas  as  simple  and 
original:  consequently  they  must  be  so.  If  you  do  not 
find  them  in  the  child-mind,  then  you  must  read  them  into 
it. 

The  genetic  idea  reverses  all  this.  Instead  of  a  fixed 
substance,  we  have  the  conception  of  a  growing,  develop- 
ing activity.  Functional  psychology  succeeds  faculty  psy- 
chology. Instead  of  beginning  with  the  most  elaborate 
exhibition  of  this  growth  and  development,  we  shall  find 


Infant  Psychology :    Ontogenesis  3 

most  instruction  in  the  simplest  activity  that  is  at  the  same 
time  the  same  activity.  Development  is  a  process  of  involu- 
tion as  well  as  of  evolution,  and  the  elements  come  to  be 
hidden  under  the  forms  of  complexity  which  they  build  up. 
Are  there  principles  in  the  adult  consciousness  which  do  not 
appear  in  the  child  consciousness,  then  the  adult  conscious- 
ness must,  if  possible,  be  interpreted  by  principles  present 
in  the  child  consciousness ;  and  when  this  is  not  possible,  the 
conditions  under  which  later  principles  take  their  rise  and 
get  their  development  must  still  be  adequately  explored. 

Now  that  this  genetic  conception  has  arrived,  it  is  aston- 
ishing that  it  did  not  arrive  sooner,  and  it  is  astonishing 
that  the  'new'  psychology  has  hitherto  made  so  little  use 
of  it.  The  difference  between  description  and  explanation 
is  as  old  as  science  itself.  What  chemist  long  remains 
satisfied  with  a  description  of  the  substances  found  in  nature  ? 
He  is  no  investigator  at  all.  His  science  was  not  born 
until  he  became  an  analyst.  The  student  of  philology 
is  not  content  with  a  description,  a  grammar,  of  spoken 
languages:  he  desiderates  their  reduction  to  common  vocal 
elements,  and  aims  to  discover  the  laws  of  their  genetic 
development.  But  the  mental  scientist  has  called  such 
description  science,  even  when  he  has  had  examples  of 
nature's  own  furnishing  around  him  which  would  have 
confirmed  or  denied  the  results  of  mental  analysis. 

The  advantages  which  we  look  to  infant  psychology  to 
furnish,  meet  just  this  need  of  analysis;  and  the  reason 
that  the  needed  analysis  is  found  here,  is  that  the  mind, 
like  all  other  natural  things,  grows.  This  general  state- 
ment may  be  put  into  concrete  form  under  several  points, 
which  divide  this  branch  of  general  psychology  from  others 
now  recognized. 

i.   In  the  first  place,  the  phenomena  of  the  infant  con- 


4  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

sciousness  are  simple  as  opposed  to  reflective ;  that  is,  they 
are  the  child's  presentations  or  memories  simply,  not  his 
own  observations  of  them.  In  the  adult  consciousness  the 
disturbing  influences  of  inner  observation  is  a  matter  of 
notorious  moment.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  know  exactly 
what  I  feel,  for  the  apprehending  of  it  through  the  attention 
alters  its  character.  My  volition  also  is  a  complex  thing  of 
alternatives,  one  of  which  is  my  personal  pride  and  self- 
conscious  egotism.  But  the  child's  emotion  is  as  spontaneous 
as  a  spring.  The  effects  of  it  in  the  mental  life  come  out  in 
action,  pure  and  uninfluenced  by  calculation  and  duplicity 
and  adult  reserve.  There  is  around  every  one  of  us  a  web  of 
convention  and  prejudice  of  our  own  making.  Not  only  do 
we  reflect  the  social  formalities  of  our  environment,  and  thus 
lose  the  distinguishing  spontaneities  of  childhood,  but  each 
one  of  us  builds  up  his  own  little  world  of  seclusion  and 
formality  with  himself.  We  are  subject  not  only  to  'idols 
of  the  forum,'  but  also  to  'idols  of  the  den.' 

The  child,  on  the  contrary,  has  not  learned  his  own  im- 
portance, his  pedigree,  his  beauty,  his  social  place,  his  reli- 
gion, his  paternal  disgrace ;  and  he  has  not  observed  himself 
through  all  these  and  countless  other  lenses  of  time,  place, 
and  circumstance.  He  has  not  yet  turned  himself  into  an 
idol  nor  the  world  into  a  temple ;  and  we  can  study  him  apart 
from  the  complex  accretions  which  are  the  later  deposits  of 
his  self -consciousness. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  best  illustrations  we  can  find  of  the 
value  of  this  consideration  in  the  study  of  the  child-mind 
is  seen  in  the  reversion  to  the  child-type  occasioned  by 
hypnotism.  One  of  the  signal  services  of  hypnotism,  I 
think,  is  the  demonstration  of  the  intrinsic  motor  force  of 
an  idea.  Any  idea  tends  at  once  to  realize  itself  in  action. 
All  conventionalities,  proprieties,  alternatives,  hesitations, 


Infant  Psychology:    Ontogenesis  5 

are  swept  away,  and  the  developed  mind  reveals  its  skele- 
ton structure,  so  to  speak,  its  composition  from  reactive 
elements.  But  hypnotism  need  not  have  been  waited  for 
to  show  this.  The  patient  observation  of  the  movements 
of  a  child  during  his  first  year  would  have  put  it  among  the 
safest  generalizations  of  the  science  of  mind.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  alternative  considerations,  reflections,  the  child 
acts,  and  act  it  must,  on  the  first  suggestion  which  has  the 
faintest  meaning  in  terms  of  its  sensations  of  movement. 

2.  The  study  of  children  is  often  the  only  means  of  testing 
the  truth  of  our  mental  analyses.  If  we  decide  that  a  cer- 
tain complex  product  is  due  to  a  union  of  simpler  mental 
elements,  then  we  may  appeal  to  the  proper  period  of  child- 
life  to  see  the  union  taking  place.  The  range  of  growth  is 
so  enormous  from  the  infant  to  the  adult,  and  the  beginnings 
of  the  child's  mental  life  are  so  low  in  the  scale,  in  the  matter 
of  mental  and  moral  endowment,  that  there  is  hardly  a  ques- 
tion of  analysis  now  under  debate  which  may  not  be  tested 
by  this  method. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  such  confirmation  shuts  out 
most  conclusively  the  advocates  of  irreducibility  in  many 
cases,  seems  to  admit  of  no  question.  A  good  example 
of  such  analysis  is  seen  in  the  distinction  between  simple 
consciousness  and  self-consciousness.  Over  and  over  again 
have  systems  been  built  upon  the  subject-object  theory  of 
consciousness;  namely,  that  personality,  subjectivity,  con- 
sciousness in  any  form,  necessarily  implicated  an  antithesis, 
in  consciousness,  between  ego  and  non-ego.  But  an  example 
of  what  is  thus  denied  may  be  seen  upon  the  floor  of  any 
nursery  where  there  is  a  child  less  than  six  months  of  age. 

At  this  point  it  is  that  child  psychology  is  more  valuable 
than  the  study  of  the  consciousness  of  animals.  The  latter 
never  become  men,  while  children  do.  The  animals  repre- 


6  Infant  and  Race  Psychology 

sent  in  some  few  respects  a  branch  of  the  tree  of  growth  in 
advance  of  man,  while  being  in  many  other  respects  very  far 
behind  him.  In  studying  animals  we  are  always  haunted 
by  the  fear  that  the  analogy  may  not  hold ;  that  some  element 
essential  to  the  development  of  the  human  mind  may  not 
discover  itself  at  all.  Even  in  such  a  question  as  the  localiza- 
tion of  the  motor  functions  of  the  brain,  where  the  analogy 
is  one  of  comparative  anatomy  and  only  secondarily  of  psy- 
chology, the  monkey  presents  analogies  with  man  which 
dogs  do  not.  But  in  the  study  of  children  we  may  be  always 
sure  that  a  normal  child  has  in  him  the  promise  of  a  normal 
man. 

The  contrast  between  this  branch  of  psychology  and 
mental  pathology  also  shows  points  of  advantage  on  the  side 
of  the  former.  In  the  study  of  mental  disease  all  the  mental 
functions  are  or  may  be  involved.  We  are  never  sure  that 
functional  connections  and  sympathies  have  not  been  de- 
veloped in  the  growth  of  the  personality  as  a  whole,  which  are 
liable  to  derangement  with  other  processes  very  remote 
from  them.  For  example,  instinct  is  modified  by  the  growth 
of  volition;  so  that  in  cases  of  diseased  volition,  we  do  not 
find  that  the  instincts  corresponding  to  those  of  the  creatures 
which  do  not  attain  volition  are  left  intact.  For  this  reason 
the  application  of  the  logical  'method  of  difference,'  which 
consists  in  observing  the  change  brought  about  in  a  phenom- 
enon from  the  removal  of  part  of  its  antecedent  conditions, 
cannot  be  always  relied  upon.  It  is  further  true  that,  in 
the  child,  the  whole  nature  is  growing  together,  so  that  the 
absence  of  one  function  does  not  mean  the  violent  uninhibited 
exercise  of  others,  as  is  the  case  with  diseased  adult  patients. 

One  of  the  same  difficulties  confronts  the  student  of 
animal  pathology.  The  indefinite  source  of  error  called 
'shock'  is  always  present.  The  organs  left  intact  by  the 


Infant  Psychology:    Ontogenesis  7 

disease  or  by  the  operator  'sympathize'  in  the  sufferings  of 
the  organism  as  a  whole ;  and  sometimes  loss  of  function  is 
reported,  when  time  afterwards  repairs  the  damage. 

In  dealing  with  the  child,  however,  the  same  advantage 
of  simplicity  is  secured  without  the  corresponding  disad- 
vantage of  possible  interference  of  functions.  In  other 
words,  the  simplicity  of  the  child  is  normal  simplicity, 
while  the  simplicity  of  disease  or  surgery  is  abnormal  sim- 
plicity; and  the  danger  of  what  physicians  call  'complica- 
tion' is  in  the  former  case  entirely  ruled  out. 

3.  Again,  in  the  study  of  the  child-mind,  we  have  the 
added  advantage  of  a  corresponding  simplicity  on  the  organic 
side ;  that  is,  we  are  able  to  take  account  of  the  physiological 
processes  at  a  time  when  they  are  relatively  simple.  I  say 
'  relatively  simple,'  for  in  reality  they  are  enormously  complex 
at  birth,  and  the  embryologist  pushes  his  researches  much 
farther  back  in  the  life  history  of  the  organism.  But  yet  they 
are  simple  relatively  to  their  condition  after  the  formation  of 
habits,  motor  complexes,  brain  connections  and  associations ; 
in  short,  after  the  nervous  system  has  been  educated  to  its 
whole  duty  in  its  living  environment.  For  example :  a  psy- 
chology which  holds  that  we  have  a  'speech  faculty,'  an  origi- 
nal mental  endowment  which  is  incapable  of  further  reduc- 
tion, may  appeal  to  the  latest  physiological  research  and 
find  organic  confirmation,  at  least  as  far  as  a  determination 
of  its  cerebral  apparatus  is  concerned ;  but  such  support 
for  the  position  is  wanting  when  we  return  to  the  brain  of  the 
infant.  Not  only  do  we  fail  to  find  the  series  of  centres  into 
which  the  organic  basis  of  speech  has  been  divided,  but  even 
those  of  them  which  we  do  find  have  not  taken  up  the  func- 
tion, either  alone  or  together,  which  they  perform  when  speech 
is  actually  realized.  In  other  words,  the  primary  object  of 
each  of  the  various  centres  involved  is  not  speech,  but  some 


8  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

other  and  simpler  function ;  and  speech  arises  by  develop- 
ment from  a  union  of  these  separate  functions. 

We  accordingly  find  a  development  of  consciousness 
keeping  pace  with  the  development  of  the  physical  organ- 
ism. The  extent  of  possible  analogies  between  the  growth 
of  body  and  that  of  mind  may  thus  be  estimated  from  below ; 
and  any  outstanding  facts  of  the  inner  life  which  cannot  be 
correlated  with  facts  of  the  physical  organism  get  greater 
prominence  and'  safer  estimation. 

4.  In  observing  young  children,  a  more  direct  applica- 
tion of  the  experimental  method  is  possible.1  By  'experi- 
ment' here,  I  mean  both  experiment  on  the  senses  and  also 
experiment  directly  on  consciousness  by  suggestion,  social 
influence,  etc.  In  experimenting  on  adults,  great  difficulties 
arise  through  the  fact  that  reactions  —  such  as  performing  a 
voluntary  movement  when  a  signal  is  heard,  etc.,  —  are  broken 
at  the  centre  by  deliberation,  habitual  desire,  choice,  etc., 
and  closed  again  by  a  conscious  voluntary  act.  The  subject 
hears  a  sound,  identifies  it,  and  presses  a  button  —  if  he 
choose  and  agree  to  do  so.  What  goes  on  in  this  interval 
between  the  advent  of  the  incoming  nerve  process  and  the 
discharge  of  the  outgoing  nerve  process?  Something,  at 
any  rate,  which  represents  a  brain  process  of  great  complexity. 
Now,  anything  that  fixes  this  sensori-motor  connection  or 
simplifies  the  central  process,  in  so  far  gives  greater  certainty 
to  the  results.  For  this  reason,  experiments  on  reflex  reac- 
tions are  valuable  and  decisive  where  similar  experiments 
on  voluntary  reactions  are  uncertain  and  of  doubtful  value. 
Now  the  fact  that  the  child  consciousness  is  relatively  simple, 
and  so  offers  a  field  for  more  fruitful  experiment,  is  illustrated 
in  what  is  said  in  the  following  pages  about  suggestion  in 

1  On  the  nature  and  application  of  experiment  in  psychology,  see  my 
Handbook  of  Psychology,  I.,  2d  ed.,  pp.  25-31. 


Infant  Psychology:    Ontogenesis  9 

infant  life;  it  is  also  seen  in  the  mechanical  reactions  of  an 
infant  to  strong  stimuli,  such  as  bright  colors,  etc.1  Of 
course,  this  is  the  point  where  originality  must  be  exercised 
in  the  devising  and  executing  of  experiments.  After  the  sub- 
ject is  a  little  better  developed,  new  experimentation  will  be 
as  difficult  here  as  in  the  other  sciences;  but  at  present  the 
simplest  phenomena  of  child  life  and  activity  are  open  to  the 
investigator. 

With  this  inadequate  review  of  the  advantages  of  infant 
psychology,  it  is  well  also  to  point  out  the  dangers  of  the 
abuse  of  such  a  branch  of  inquiry.  Such  dangers  are  real. 
The  very  simplicity  which  seems  to  characterize  the  life 
of  the  child  is  often  extremely  misleading,  and  misleading 
because  the  simplicity  in  question  is  not  always  typical 
but  may  be  to  a  degree  individual.  Mr.  Spencer  had  a  large 
range  of  facts  in  view  when  he  said  that  organic  development 
involved  progress  not  only  in  complexity,  but  also  in  definite- 
ness  ;  and  the  distinction  between  simplicity  which  indicates 
mere  absence  of  complexity,  and  that  which  indicates  definite  - 
ness  of  function  as  well,  applies  with  great  force  to  mental 
growth.  Two  nervous  reactions  may  appear  equally  simple ; 
but  one  may  be  an  adaptive  reaction  learned  with  great  pains 
and  really  very  complex  in  its  elements,  while  the  other  may 
be  inadaptive  and  really  simple.  So  a  state  of  infant  con- 
sciousness may  seem  to  involve  no  complexity  or  integration, 
and  yet  turn  out  to  represent,  by  reason  of  its  very  apparent 
simplicity  and  definiteness,  a  mass  of  individual  or  race 
development.  It  is  a  corollary  from  this  that  children  differ 
under  the  law  of  heredity  very  remarkably,  even  in  the  sim- 
plest manifestations  of  their  conscious  lives.  It  is  never  safe, 
except  under  the  qualifications  mentioned  below,  to  say, 

1  See  below,  Chaps.  III.  to  VI. 


IO  Infant  and  Race  Psychology 

'This  child  did,  consequently  all  children  must.'  The  most 
we  can  usually  say  in  observing  single  infants  is,  'This 
child  did,  consequently  another  child  may.'  Yet  the  uncer- 
tainties of  the  case  may  be  summed  up  and  avoided  if  certain 
principles  of  mental  development  are  kept  in  view. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  we  can  fix  no  absolute  time  in  the 
history  of  the  mind  at  which  a  certain  mental  function  takes 
its  rise.     The  observations,  now  quite  extensively  recorded, 
and  sometimes  quoted  as  showing  that  the  first  year,  or  the 
second  year,  etc.,  brings  such  and  such  developments,  tend, 
on  the  contrary,  to  show  that  such  divisions  do  not  hold  in 
any  strict   sense.    Like  any  organic  growth,  the  nervous 
system  may  develop  faster  under  more  favourable  conditions, 
or  more  slowly  under  less  favourable;    and  the  growth  of 
mental   faculty   is    largely   dependent    upon    such   organic 
growth.     Only  in  broad  outline  and  by  the  widest  generaliza- 
tion can  such  epochs  be  marked  off  at  all. 

2.  The  possibility  of  the  occurrence  of  a  mental  phe- 
nomenon must  be  distinguished  from  its  necessity.    The 
occurrence  of  a  single  clearly  observed  event  is  decisive  only 
against  the  theory  according  to  which  its  occurrence  under 
the  given  conditions  may  not  occur;    that  is,  the  cause 
of  the  event  is  proved  not  to  lie  among  agencies  or  conditions 
which  are  absent.     For  example:    the  very  early  adaptive 
movements  of  the  infant  in  receiving  its  food  cannot  be  due 
to  volition ;  but  the  case  is  still  open  for  the  question,  what  is 
the  sufficient  reason  of  their  presence,  i.e.  how  much  ner- 
vous development  is  present,  how  much  experience  is  neces- 
sary, etc.    It  is  well  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  one  case  may 
be  decisive  in  overthrowing  a  theory,  but  the  conditions  are 
seldom  simple  enough  to  make  one  case  decisive  in  establish- 
ing a  theory. 

3.  It  follows  from  the  principle  of  growth  itself  that  the 


Infant  Psychology  :    Ontogenesis  1 1 

order  of  development  of  the  mental  functions  is  constant, 
and  normally  free  from  variation;  consequently,  the  most 
fruitful  observations  of  children  are  those  which  show  that 
such  a  function  was  present  before  another  could  be  ob- 
served. The  complexity  becomes  finally  so  remarkable 
that  there  seems  to  be  no  before  or  after  at  all  in  mental 
things ;  but  if  the  child's  processes  show  stages  in  which  any 
element  is  clearly  absent,  we  have  at  once  light  upon  the 
law  of  growth.  For  example :  if  a  single  case  is  conclusively 
established  of  a  child's  drawing  an  inference  before  it  begins 
to  use  words  or  significant  vocal  sounds,  the  one  case  is  as 
good  as  a  thousand  to  show  that  thought  develops  to  a  degree 
independently  of  spoken  language.1 

4.  While  the  most  direct  results  are  acquired  by  system- 
atic experiments  with  a  given  point  in  view,  still  general 
observations  kept  regularly,  and  carefully  recorded,  are 
important  for  the  interpretation  which  a  great  many  such 
records  may  afford  in  the  end.  In  the  multitude  of  expe- 
riences here,  as  everywhere,  there  is  strength.  Such  ob- 
servations should  cover  everything  about  the  child,  —  his 
movements,  cries,  impulses,  sleep,  dreams,  personal  pref- 
erences, muscular  efforts,  attempts  at  expression,  games, 
favourites,  etc.,  —  and  should  be  recorded  in  a  regular  day- 
book at  the  time  of  occurrence.  What  is  important  and 
what  is  not,  is,  of  course,  something  to  be  learned ;  and  it 
is  extremely  desirable  that  any  one  contemplating  such 
observations  should  acquaint  himself  beforehand  with  the 
principles  of  general  psychology  and  physiology,  espe- 
cially the  former,  and  seek  also  the  practical  advice  of  a 
trained  observer.2 

1  Yet  even  this  rule  is  subject  to  the  modifications  given  below  in  this 
chapter,  §  4,  II. 

2  See  Chap.  XII.,   §  3,  below,  on  the  method  of  observing  children's 
imitations. 


12  Infant   and   Race   Psychology 

§  2.   Race  Psychology:  Phylogenesis 

If  we  adopt  a  distinction  in  terminology  which  the  biolo- 
gists use,  and  call  the  development  of  a  single  life  or  mind 
its  ontogenesis,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  call  the  life  history  of 
the  race,  or  of  consciousness  in  all  the  forms  of  animal  life, 
the  phylogenesis  of  mind,  it  will  be  seen  that  what  I  have  said 
about  infant  psychology  falls  under  the  former  head.  Before 
we  proceed  to  take  up  the  special  questions  to  which  this  book 
is  devoted,  it  may  be  well  to  indicate  the  place  of  phylogenetic 
inquiry. 

The  phrase  'Race  Psychology'  is  commonly  used  in  a 
narrow  sense,  having  reference  to  the  characteristic  mental 
peculiarities  of  various  peoples,  tribes,  stages  of  civilization, 
cults,  etc.  That  is,  the  word  'race*  is  applied  to  the  human 
race.  The  points  of  comparison,  on  the  other  hand,  between 
human  and  animal  consciousness,  fall  under  so-called  Com- 
parative Psychology.  I  take  the  liberty,  however,  of  extend- 
ing the  meaning  of  the  former  phrase  to  include  the  history 
of  consciousness,  very  much  as  the  phrase  'race  experience' 
is  used  to  include  the  full  wealth  of  inheritance  derived,  as  it 
is  held  to  be,  from  ancestral  life  of  whatever  kind.  The 
problem  of  'race  psychology'  then  becomes  the  problem  of 
the  phylogenetic  development  of  consciousness,  just  as 
'individual  psychology'  deals  with  its  ontogenetic  develop- 
ment, both  being  legitimate  branches  of  genetic  as  opposed 
to  analytic  psychology. 

The  question  of  race  psychology,  as  thus  understood,  is 
an  extremely  important  and,  until  very  lately,  a  greatly 
neglected  question.  The  presumption  in  favour  of  mental 
phylogenesis,  arising  from  the  modern  evolution  theory  in 
biology,  cannot  be  duly  weighed  without  the  most  careful 
and  detailed  comparative  work  and  the  fairest  interpretation 


Race   Psychology:    Phylogenesis  13 

of  the  concomitance  existing  between  nervous  and  mental 
growth  everywhere.  So  far  as  theoretical  human  psychol- 
ogy has  to  do  with  questions  of  the  nature  of  mind,  as  op- 
posed to  questions  of  function,  it  is,  I  hold,  largely  indepen- 
dent of  questions  of  origin ;  but  so  far  as  data  of  origin  must 
be  included  in  the  answer  to  questions  of  function,  just  so  far 
do  they  come  to  throw  light  on  the  deeper  problems  of  the 
nature  of  the  mind  as  well.1 

Assuming,  then,  that  there  is  a  phylogenetic  problem, 
—  that  is,  assuming  that  mind  has  had  a  natural  history  in 
the  animal  series,  —  we  are  at  liberty  to  use  what  we  know  of 
the  correspondence  between  nerve  process  and  conscious 
process,  in  man  and  the  higher  animals,  to  arrive  at  hypotheses 
for  its  solution : 2  to  expect  general  analogies  to  hold  between 
nervous  development  and  mental  development,  one  of  which 
is  that  between  race  history  epochs  and  individual  history 
epochs  through  the  repetition  of  phylogenesis  in  ontogenesis, 
called  in  biology  'Recapitulation';  to  view  the  plan  of  de- 
velopment of  the  two  series  of  facts  taken  together  as  a 
common  one  in  race  history,  as  we  are  convinced  it  is  in 
individual  history  by  an  overwhelming  weight  of  evidence; 
to  accept  the  criteria  established  by  biological  research  on  one 
side  of  this  correspondence,  —  the  organic,  —  while  we  expect 
biology  to  accept  the  criteria  established  on  the  other  side  by 

1  For  a  later  full  discussion  of  '  Origin  vs.  Nature,'  see  the  writer's  article 
on  that  topic  in  his  Dictionary  oj  Philosophy,  II. 

2  Such  a  hypothesis  is  that  of  a  'uniform  psycho-physical  connection' 
which  is  commonly  held  to  apply  in  two  great  spheres  in  which  it  has  not 
as  yet  been  proved,  viz.  the  sphere  of  volition  (see,  however,  Chap.  XIV. 
below)  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  the  lower  nervous  centres  on  the  other. 
The  two  questions  which  uniformity  supposes  answered  in  the  affirmative  are, 
accordingly:    has  volition  a  nervous  process?    and,  do  the  lower  nervous 
ganglia  have  consciousness?     The  theory  of   'Psycho-physical  Parallelism' 
has  detailed  discussion  in  the  later  volume  in  this  series,  Development  and 
Evolution  (Chap.  I.). 


14  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

psychology;  and,  finally,  to  admit  with  equal  freedom  the 
possibility  of  an  absolute  beginning  of  either  series  at  points, 
if  such  be  found,  at  which  the  best  conceived  criteria  on  either 
side  fail  of  application.  For  example :  if  biology  has  the 
right  to  make  it  a  legitimate  problem  whether  the  organic 
exhibits  a  kind  of  function  over  and  above  that  supplied 
by  the  chemical  affinities  which  are  the  necessary  presup- 
positions of  life,  then  the  psychologist  has  the  equal  right, 
after  the  same  candid  rehearsal  of  the  facts  in  support 
of  his  criteria,  to  submit  for  examination  the  claim,  let  us 
say,  that  'judgments  of  worth'  represent  a  kind  of 
deliverance  which  vital  functions  as  such  do  not  give 
rise  to. 

The  chapters  of  this  book  will  be  found,  in  various  places, 
to  involve  all  these  determinations  respecting  genetic  psy- 
chology. One  of  them,  however,  —  that  which  relates  to  the 
analogy  between  individual  and  race  growth,  —  carries  so 
many  preliminary  suggestions  and  yet  has  received  so  little 
enforcement  in  the  literature  of  the  topic,  that  it  is  well  to 
present  it  at  the  outset  with  greater  fulness. 

§  3.  Analogies  of  Development 

Students  of  biology  consider  the  argument  for  organic 
evolution  especially  strong  in  view  of  the  analogy  between 
race  and  individual  development.  The  individual  in  em- 
bryo passes  through  stages  which  represent  morphologi- 
cally, to  a  degree,  the  stages  actually  found  in  the  ancestral 
animal  series.  A  similar  analogy,  when  inquired  into  on 
the  side  of  consciousness,  seems  on  the  surface  true,  since 
we  find  more  and  more  developed  stages  of  conscious  func- 
tion in  a  series  corresponding  in  the  main  with  the  stages 
of  nervous  growth  in  the  animals;  and  then  we  find  this 


Analogies   of  Development  15 

growth  paralleled  in  its  great  features  in  the  mental  devel- 
opment of  the  human  infant. 

The  race  series  seems  to  require,  both  on  organic  grounds 
and  from  evidence  regarding  consciousness,  a  development 
whose  major  terms  are  somewhat  in  this  order,1  i.e.  simple 
contractility  with  the  organic  analogue  of  pleasure  and  pain; 
nervous  integration  corresponding  to  the  sense  functions, 
including  the  congeries  of  muscular  sensations,  and  some 
adaptive  movements ;  nervous  integration  to  a  degree  to  which 
corresponds  mental  presentation  of  objects  with  higher  motor 
organization  and  reflex  attention;  greater  co-ordination, 
having  on  the  conscious  side  memory,  conscious  imitation, 
impulse,  instinct,  instinctive  emotion;  finally,  cerebral  func- 
tion with  conscious  thought,  voluntary  action,  and  ideal 
emotion.  Without  insisting  on  the  details  of  this  sketch  — 
intended  at  this  point  for  no  more  than  a  sketch  —  certain 
great  epochs  of  functional  differentiation  may  be  clearly  seen. 
First,  the  epoch  of  the  rudimentary  sense  processes,  the 
pleasure  and  pain  process,  and  simple  motor  adaptation, 
called  for  convenience  the  '  affective  epoch ' :  second,  the 
epoch  of  presentation,  memory,  imitation,  defensive  action, 
instinct,  which  passes  by  gradations  into,  third,  the  epoch 
of  complex  presentation,  complex  motor  co-ordination,  of 
conquest,  of  offensive  action,  and  rudimentary  volition. 
These,  the  second  and  third  together,  I  should  characterize, 
on  the  side  of  consciousness,  as  the  'epoch  of  objective 
reference.'  And  fourth,  the  epoch  of  thought,  reflection,  self- 
assertion,  social  organization,  union  of  forces,  co-operation; 
the  'epoch  of  subjective  reference,'  which,  in  human  history, 
merges  into  the  'social  and  ethical  epoch.' 

In  the  animal  world  these  terms  form  a  series  —  evident 
enough  on  the  surface  —  its  terms  not  sharply  divided 
1  Some  of  these  points  have  discussion  in  later  chapters. 


1 6  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

from  one  another,  not  in  most  instances  exclusive  before  and 
after;  but  representing  great  places  for  emphasis,  stages  of 
safe  acquirement,  and  outlooks  for  further  growth.  So  we 
find  the  invertebrates,  the  lower  vertebrates,  the  higher 
vertebrates  up  to,  or  somewhere  near,  man,  and  man  —  four 
stages. 

The  analogy  of  this  series,  again,  with  that  of  the  infant's 
growth,  is,  in  the  main,  very  clear:  the  child  begins  in  its 
pre-natal  and  early  post-natal  experience  with  blank  sensations 
and  pleasure  and  pain  with  the  motor  adaptations  to  which 
they  lead,  passes  into  a  stage  of  apprehension  of  objects  with 
response  to  them  by  'suggestion,'  imitation,  etc.,  gets  to  be 
more  or  less  self-controlled,  imaginative,  and  volitional, 
and  ultimately  becomes  reflective,  social,  and  ethical. 

On  the  side  of  consciousness,  however,  we  are  able  safely 
to  divide  our  functional  epochs  a  little  more  minutely,  and 
in  those  of  the  following  chapters  in  which  ontogenetic 
development  is  our  main  point  of  inquiry  this  is  done. 

A  single  further  distinction  is  in  point  here,  however;  a 
distinction  also  further  justified  in  a  subsequent  connec- 
tion.1 It  is  evident  that  if  the  objective  epoch  precedes  the 
subjective  —  if  the  child  gets  objects  and  reacts  upon  them 
at  first  without  reflection,  and  only  later  deliberates  upon 
their  meaning  to  himself,  and  then  aims  at  his  own  pleasure 
or  profit  in  his  behaviour  toward  them  —  it  is  evident  that 
there  will  be  a  great  difference  between  the  way  he  looks  at 
other  persons  at  these  two  stages  of  his  growth  respectively. 
Before  he  understands  himself,  that  is,  during  the  objective 
epoch,  he  cannot  understand  others,  except  as  they  are  also 

1  Below,  Chap.  VI.,  §  3,  and  Chap.  XI.,  §  3;  also  the  volume  Social  and 
Ethical  Interpretations,  especially  Chap.  I.  The  development  of  the  object 
mode  is  worked  out  in  detail  in  the  treatise  Thought  and  Things,  Vol.  I. 
(1906). 


Analogies   of  Development  17 

objects  of  a  certain  kind ;  but  in  learning  to  understand  him- 
self, he  also  comes  to  understand  them,  as  like  himself,  that 
is,  as  themselves  having  objects  to  act  toward  and  upon  just 
as  he  does.  Here  are,  therefore,  four  very  distinct  phases 
of  the  child's  experience  of  persons  not  himself,  all  subse- 
quent to  his  purely  affective  or  pleasure-pain  epoch;  first, 
persons  are  simply  objects,  parts  of  the  material  going  on  to 
be  presented,  mainly  sensations  which  stand  out  strong,  etc.; 
second,  persons  are  very  peculiar  objects,  very  interesting, 
very  active,  very  arbitrary,  very  portentous  of  pleasure  or 
pain.  If  we  consider  these  objects  as  fully  presented,  i.e. 
as  in  due  relationship  to  one  another  in  space,  projected  out, 
and  thought  of  as  external,  and  call  such  objects  again 
projects,  then  persons  at  this  stage  may  be  called  personal 
projects.  They  have  certain  peculiarities  afterwards  found  by 
the  child  to  be  the  attributes  of  personality;  third,  his  own 
actions  issuing  from  himself,  largely  by  imitation,  as  we  shall 
see,  in  response  to  the  requirements  of  this  'projective' 
environment,  having  his  own  organism  as  their  centre  and  his 
own  consciousness  as  their  theatre,  give  him  light  on  himself 
as  subject;  and,  fourth,  this  light  upon  himself  is  reflected 
upon  other  persons  to  illuminate  them  as  also  subjects,  and 
they  to  him  then  become  ejects  or  social  fellows. 

I  insist  upon  this  series  of  distinctions  here,  even  though 
it  be  necessary  to  refer  the  reader  ahead  in  my  text  for  further 
justification  of  them;  since  it  is  the  fundamental  disregard 
of  them  which  has  vitiated  much  of  the  earlier  work  in  infant 
and  social  psychology.  The  familiar  '  psychologist's  fallacy,' 
a  fallacy  which  is  so  easy  a  refuge  for  inadequate  insight, 
and  so  ready  a  screen  for  faulty  analysis,  will  be  perma- 
nently exposed  only  by  the  adoption  of  terms  which  forbid 
appeal  to  it.  If  by  'project'  of  persons  we  understand  the 
infant's  consciousness  of  others  before  he  is  conscious  of 


1 8  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

himself,  by  'subject'  his  consciousness  of  himself,  and  by 
'eject,'  as  Clifford  suggested,  his  consciousness  of  other 
persons  as  similar  to  himself,  we  have,  I  think,  safer  terms 
than  before,  and,  at  the  same  time,  full  opportunity  to  define 
the  content  of  each  as  the  facts  may  require. 

The  parallelism  with  animal  development  is  quite  clear 
from  this  new  point  of  approach.  The  only  stage  for  which 
an  evident  analogy  has  not  been  pointed  out  by  other  writers 
is  that  called  'projective.'  Now  in  the  fact  of  herding, 
common  life  and  arrangements  for  the  protection  of  the 
herd,  animal  societies  of  various  kinds,  animal  division  of 
labour,  etc.,  —  whatever  be  the  origin  of  it,  —  we  have 
what  seems  to  be  such  an  epoch  in  animal  life.  These 
creatures  show  a  real  recognition  of  one  individual  by  another, 
and  a  real  community  of  life  and  reaction,  which  is  quite 
different  from  the  individualism  of  a  purely  sensational  and 
unsocial  consciousness.  And  yet  it  is  just  as  different  from 
the  reflective  organization  of  human  society,  in  which  the 
self-consciousness  and  personal  volition  of  the  individual 
play  the  most  important  role.1  I  see  no  way  of  accounting  for 
the  gregarious  instinct  anywhere,  except  on  the  assumption  of 
such  an  epoch  of  animal  consciousness. 

We  thus  reach  what  I  think  is  a  valuable  distinction  in 
the  interpretation  of  animal  action,  and  avoid  what  has 
been  a  repetition  of  the  'psychologist's  fallacy'  habitual 
with  naturalists.  It  is  just  as  great  a  mistake  to  account  for 
human  society  in  terms  of  the  gregarious  instinct  of  animals, 
however  we  may  account  for  this  instinct,  as  it  is  to  explain 
human  reflective  altruism  by  the  organic  sympathy  of  the 
lioness  with  her  cub.  In  each  of  these  cases  we  are  antici- 
pating a  later  stage  of  a  single  process  of  growth,  because, 

1  The  'social'  life  of  certain  of  the  hymenoptera,  notably  bees  and  ants, 
illustrates  an  extreme  'projective'  social  development  embodied  in  instinct. 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  19 

being  at  this  later  stage  ourselves,  we  are  able  to  anticipate 
it ;  and  by  thus  levelling  the  higher  down  to  the  lower,  we  are 
failing  to  recognize  the  essential  process  by  which,  and  by 
which  alone,  all  through  the  whole  organic  evolution,  higher 
functional  forms  are  reached  by  development  from  lower. 

§  4.    Variations  in  Ontogeny 

Even  in  the  great  darkness  which  obscures  the  relation 
of  race  to  individual  development,  two  modifications  seem 
plainly  necessary  of  the  common  biological  theory  of  Reca- 
pitulation, according  to  which  there  is  a  strict  parallel 
between  them.1 

I.  The  continued  application  of  the  principles  of  organic 
Habit  and  Accommodation,  with  the  perpetuation  of  their 
results  either  by  natural  selection  alone  or  with  the  inheritance 
of  characters  acquired  by  individual  creatures,  leads  to  certain 
organic  'short-cuts'  — the  omission  in  future  descendants  of 
certain  elements  or  stages  which  were  necessary  in  the  prog- 
ress of  their  ancestors. 

Let  us  look  first  at  Habit,  and  put  the  case,  at  the  outset, 
abstractly.  A  particular  function  involving  elements  a,  b,  c, 
etc.,  in  a  dog,  for  example,  may,  by  the  habitual  exercise  of 
this  function,  in  later  modes  of  life  and  different  environ- 
ment, come  to  involve  only  the  elements  a,  c,  etc.  This  is 
actually  seen  in  well-known  examples,  such  as  the  difference 
between  dogs,  together  with  rabbits  and  lower  creatures 

1  See  also  Chap.  XVI.,  §  4,  below.  Perhaps  the  best  and  most  readable 
statement  of  the  present  standing  of  the  theory  of  '  Recapitulation '  is  the  late 
Professor  A.  M.  Marshall's  President's  Address  before  the  British  Association 
at  Leeds  in  1890,  reprinted  as  Chap.  XIII.,  'The  Recapitulation  Theory,'  in 
Marshall's  Biological  Lectures  and  Addresses  (1894).  The  names  associated 
with  the  theory  are  Ernst  von  Baer,  Louis  Agassiz,  Fritz  Mviller,  Haeckel,  and 
Balfour.  The  standing  of  the  theory  is  not  materially  changed  to-day  (1906). 


2O  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

generally,  on  one  side,  and  monkeys  and  men  on  the  other 
side,  in  regard  to  certain  sense  functions.  If  the  cortical 
centre  for  sight  be  extirpated  in  a  dog,  he  becomes  tempo- 
rarily blind,  recovering  his  sight  after  some  days  by  what  is 
supposed  to  be  the  reinstatement  of  a  lower  centre  in  the 
function  which  belonged  to  it  in  ancestral  forms ;  this  lower 
centre  is  the  b  of  the  a,  b,  c  series.  But  when  monkeys  or 
men  lose  their  sight  by  reason  of  a  lesion  of  the  cortical  centre 
for  vision  in  the  occipital  lobe  they  never  recover  it.  In  this 
case  the  lower  centre  has  lost  Us  ability  to  constitute  itself  a 
sight  centre,  —  it  is  no  longer  necessary  as  a  term  in  the  series 
of  organs  involved  in  the  function,  —  and  a,  c,  etc.,  represents 
the  series.  This  'short-cut'  is  inherited  or  selected  and  so 
represents  a  departure  from  phylogeny.  As  I  have  said 
elsewhere:  "In  organisms  in  which  the  reflex  reactions  pre- 
dominate, in  which  the  'downward'  growth  has  led  to  the 
consolidation  of  the  greater  part  of  the  system  in  ganglionic 
centres,  we  would  expect  that  the  higher  functions,  the 
centres  for  complex  delicate  movements,  would  be  more 
dependent  and  unformed.  Consequently,  when  they  are 
interfered  with,  the  ganglionic  centres,  being  still  in  close 
anatomical  connection  with  them,  would  regain  the  function 
which  they  formerly  performed.  Thus  sensori-motor  gangli- 
onic connections  which  have  fallen  into  disuse  through  the 
growth  of  higher  centres  recover  their  lost  activity  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  serious  and  dangerous  lesion.  It  is  nothing 
more  than  a  reversion  of  function  by  a  reverse  process  of 
adaptation.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  case  of  man,  the  law 
of  'upward'  growth  has  reached  its  fullest  application;  the 
cortical  centres  have  become  independent  of  their  ganglionic 
confreres,  and,  in  the  loss  of  the  former  an  irreparable  damage 
is  sustained.  In  this  latter  case,  it  is  a  general  in  the  army 
who  has  fallen,  and  no  subordinate  officer  can  fill  his  place ; 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  21 

in  the  former  case,  it  is  a  captain  that  is  lost  and  his  lieutenant 
is  easily  promoted."  * 

Referring  to  this  hypothesis  which  I  have  called  the  '  short- 
cut' theory,  in  its  application  to  muscular  movement,  the 
application  which  has  especial  interest  for  us  later  on,  Foster 
says:2  "It  is  possible  to  maintain  the  thesis  that  man  has 
become  so  developed  as  to  his  nervous  system  and  the  motor 
cortex,  so  accustomed  to  make  use  exclusively  of  the  pyramidal 
system,  that  the  will  has  lost  the  power,  still  possessed  by  the 
lower  animals,  to  gain  access,  by  some  path  other  than  the 
pyramidal  one,  to  the  immediate  nervous  mechanisms  of 
thought." 

The  practical  result,  in  the  case  of  this  particular  illustra- 
tion, which  recurs  in  our  later  discussion,3  may  be  put  very 
briefly  thus:  it  is  possible  that  animals  may  perform  move- 
ments which  seem  to  be  voluntary,  with  a  nervous  apparatus 
which  would  be  inadequate  to  their  voluntary  performance  by 
the  child  or  the  man*  And  this  is  to  say  that  man  in  his 
individual  development  does  not  pass  through  the  stage  rep- 
resented by  the  animal's  performance  of  this  function  with 
this  apparatus. 

In  the  fact  of  Accommodation  or  adaptation,  we  find  a 
similar  influence  at  work  to  modify  the  strict  parallel  required 
by  the  theory  of  Recapitulation.  By  accommodation,  with 
the  new  adaptations  which  it  works,  old  habits  are  broken  up, 
and  new  co-ordinations  are  made,  which  are  more  complex, 
or  new  organic  growths  secured,  which  simplify  a  function. 
These  gains  are  again  clinched  by  heredity  or  selection  and 

1  Handbook  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II.,  p.  46. 

2  Textbook  oj  Physiology,  5th  ed.,  III.,  p.  1062. 

3  Below,  Chap.  XIII. 

4  I  have,  in  reference  to  this  formulation,  the  opinion  of  Professor  H.  F. 
Osborn,  that  '  this  is  probably  supported  by  the  comparative  anatomy  of  the 
cortex.' 


22  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

constitute  further  variations  from  phytogeny.  This  is 
particularly  evident  in  volition.  Foster  again  notes  this  in 
the  quotation  which  follows,  citing  the  same  structure  as  in 
the  earlier  quotation,  the  pyramidal  tracts.  He  does  not 
appear  to  see  the  application  of  the  two  opposite  principles 
which  I  have  mentioned,  however;  for  he  does  not  make  it 
clear  that  in  one  case,  the  latter,  he  is  dealing  with  the  question 
of  the  origin  of  the  pyramidal  tracts  by  new  adaptations,  and 
in  the  other,  with  the  organic  fixing  of  these  tracts  for  pur- 
poses of  voluntary  movement.  He  says :  *  "When  we  pass  in 
review  a  series  of  brains  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  and  see 
how  the  pyramidal  system  is,  so  to  speak,  grafted  on  to  the 
rest  of  the  brain,  when  we  observe  how  the  increasing  differen- 
tiation of  the  motor  cortex  runs  parallel  to  the  increasing 
possession  of  skilled,  educated  movements,  we  may  perhaps 
suppose  that  'a  short-cut'  from  the  cortex  to  the  origins  of 
the  several  motor  nerves,  such  as  is  afforded  by  the  pyramidal 
fibres,  from  the  advantages  it  offers  to  the  more  primitive 
path  from  segment  to  segment  along  the  cerebro-spinal  axis, 
has  by  natural  selection  been  developed  into  being  in  man 
the  chief  and  most  important  instrument  for  carrying  out 
voluntary  movements." 

This  influence  of  Accommodation  means,  therefore,  in 
this  particular  case,  that  animals  may  have  nervous  apparatus 
strikingly  similar  to  that  of  man  in  many  of  its  parts  and  still 
not  be  able  to  perform  the  functions  which  are  performed  by 
those  parts  in  man.  And  the  reason  of  it  is,  again,  that  man 
has  got  a  certain  apparatus  set  aside  for  a  higher  function 
without  first  using  it  for  the  lower  function  for  which  the 
animal  used  it.  In  this  again,  we  must  recognize  departure 
from  strict  Recapitulation. 

The  degree  to  which  a  simple  structural  device  may  pre- 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  1063. 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  23 

serve  its  type  of  action  while  adapting  itself  to  new  conditions, 
and  assuming  functions  which,  so  far  as  their  value,  end,  and 
conscious  character  are  concerned,  are  new  —  this  is  simply 
extraordinary.  And  all  the  more  so  when  we  go  to  conscious- 
ness for  the  criterion  of  difference  hi  function.  I  shall 
illustrate  this  further  in  what  I  call  the  principle  of  'lapsed 
links'  in  the  discussion  of  imitation  below,  and  also  in  con- 
nection with  the  theory  of  the  genesis  of  emotional  expression.1 
The  self -repeating  or  'circular'  reaction,  to  which  the  name 
'organic  imitation'  is  given  in  the  later  pages,  is  seen  to  be 
fundamental  and  to  remain  the  same,  as  far  as  structure  is 
concerned,  for  all  motor  activity  whatever:  the  only  differ- 
ence between  higher  and  lower  function  being,  that  in  the 
higher,  certain  accumulated  adaptations  have  in  time  so 
come  to  overlie  the  original  reaction,  that  the  conscious 
state  which  accompanies  it  seems  to  differ  per  se  from  the 
crude  imitative  consciousness  in  which  it  had  its  beginning. 

These  positions,  it  is  clear,  suggest  modifications  of  that 
doctrine  of  ontogenesis  which  holds  that  it  closely  epitomizes 
phylogenesis.  It  is  evident  that  while  the  organism  develops 
serially  in  regular  stages,  yet  often  the  stages  in  the  indi- 
vidual's growth  represent  directly  later  stages  in  the  series  of 
animal  structures,  without  having  passed  through  all  the 
earlier  stages.2  To  use  the  same  example,  which  is  apropos 
to  our  later  topics,  we  could  not  hold  that  the  infant  first  gets 
voluntary  movement  by  using  the  intra-segmental  pathways, 
and  then  later,  by  developing  the  pyramidal  tracts  and  their 
connections,  transfers  its  voluntary  function  to  these.  Yet 
this  latter  has  been,  probably,  the  course  of  phylogenesis. 

1  Chap.  X.,  §  2,  for  the  first  reference  and  Chap.  VIII.,   §  4,  for   the 
second. 

2  Professor  C.  S.  Minot  thinks  this  is  the  case  with  structures,  the  material 
going  directly  to  make  up  later  organs.     'For  example,'  he  says,  'the  gill- 
arches  make  the  branchian  apparatus  in  fishes,  but  the  neck  in  man.' 


24  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

On  the  contrary,  we  find  that  the  infant  does  not  act  volun- 
tarily at  all  until  he  acts  ma  the  pyramidal  tracts  and  their 
central  connections.  The  stage  of  intra-segmental  voluntary 
action  which,  if  it  exists,  represents  in  certain  animals  a 
stage  of  development,  is  lacking  altogether  in  the  ontogenetic 
series.1 

Similarly,  we  find  a  remarkable  illustration  on  the  side  of 
Accommodation.  On  the  strict  interpretation  of  the  doctrine 
of  Recapitulation  we  should  find  the  child  first  passing  through 
a  stage  of  very  varied  and  admirable  instinctive  adjustments, 

—  corresponding  to  the  instinctive  equipment  of  the  brutes, 

—  and  then  later  losing  these  instincts  when  it  learns  to  act 
voluntarily.     But  the  child  shows  nothing  of  the  kind.     We 
find  instead  that  he   passes  directly  from  the   suggestive, 
sensori-motor,  stage,  which  is  much  lower  and  earlier  in  the 
phylogenetic  series  than  the  extreme  instinctive  stage,  directly 
to  the  volitional  stage.     He  accomplishes  this  by  direct  in- 
heritance of  the  highly  differentiated  organism  which  has 
arisen  through  the  exercise  of  conscious  mental  selection  with 
heredity  or  through  natural  selection,2  and  so  omits,  in  his 
individual  development,  a  great  mass  of  phylogenetic  details. 

1  Cf.  Edinger's  account  of  the  fcetal  and  early  development  of  the  pyra- 
midal tracts  in  his  Structure  of  the  Central  Nervous  System. 

2  It  will  have  been  noticed  that  in  using  the  phrase  '  heredity,  or  natural 
selection,'  I  offer  either  of  the  current  biological  views  of  heredity.     I  do 
not  think  the  current  controversy  over  'acquired  characters'  is  pertinent  to 
this  topic :    for  Weismann's  supplementary  hypotheses  in  support  of  neo- 
Darwinism  are  so  evidently  framed  to  reinstate  all  the  explanations  of  the 
doctrine  of  use  with  heredity,  that  it  makes  little  difference  which  side  is 
right.     If  the  effects  of  experience  are  preserved  sufficiently  to  secure  evolu- 
tion, as  we  find  it,  it  becomes  an  extremely  interesting  biological  problem 
to  be  sure,  but  not  a  matter  of  much  philosophical  importance  whether  the 
method  is  use  with  heredity  or  variation  with  selection.     See  further  dis- 
cussion below,   Chap.  VII.,    §  3.     The  writer's  own  theory  of  'Organic 
Selection'  —  a  form  of  Darwinism  —  is  presented  in  detail  in  the  volume 
Development  and  Evolution  (1902). 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  25 

The  probability  of  such  a  modification  of  the  doctrine  of 
ontogenesis  occurs  to  us  also  in  a  later  connection  as  a  corol- 
lary from  the  psychological  theory  of  Habit.1  The  question 
is  raised  whether  the  effects  of  habit,  itself  a  phenomenon  of 
development,  would  not  be  inherited,  or  selected,  thus  ab- 
breviating the  ontogenetic  process.  A  child,  for  example,  by 
possessing  a  direct  tendency  to  respond  to  a  visual  stimulus 
with  movements  of  the  tongue  and  larynx,  would  be  saved 
the  long  course  of  development  which  has  been  necessary 
phylogenetically  for  the  establishing  of  the  direct  connection, 
now  very  generally  held  to  exist,  between  the  visual  and 
motor-speech  centres,  with  a  corresponding  saving  on  the 
mental  side.  A  striking  illustration  is  seen,  also,  in  the 
infant's  behaviour  in  regard  to  space.  A  strict  reproduction 
of  the  phylogenetic  order  would  require  that  the  child  should 
first  see  the  spatial  dimensions  with  all  the  exactitude  of  the 
young  of  some  of  the  animals,  and  then  afterwards  develop 
the  apparatus  for  learning  space  properties  by  a  very  gradual 
experience,  at  the  same  time  losing  the  former  apparatus  and 
with  it  his  instinctive  knowledge  of  space. 

These  considerations  also  seem,  from  the  psychological 
side,  to  support  the  general  theory  of  'race  experience'  as 
held  by  the  evolutionists  of  both  schools.  The  whole  ten- 
dency of  current  psychology  is  toward  a  functional  view  of 
experience,  i.e.  toward  the  view  that  memory  is  a  form  of 
mental  reinstatement  or  habit,  that  character  is  disposition 
for  action,  that  the  brain  develops  by  enlargement  of  function 
on  the  basis  of  earlier  function,  and  that  the  mind  proceeds 
upon  its  past,  even  when  it  does  not  know  its  indebtedness. 
The  value  of  ancestral  experience  is  seen  in  what  it  makes 
me  to  be  for  opinion  and  action  now  —  by  whatever  process 
it  may  have  come  down  from  my  father  to  myself. 
1  Below,  Chap.  XVI.,  §§  2,  3. 


26  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

Now  this  is  what  evolution  claims  for  race  experience.  It 
says  what  is  present  in  the  mind  now,  in  the  way  of  function, 
is  due  somehow  to  the  past.  Nervous  inheritance  provides 
for  the  apparatus,  and  mental  inheritance  sums  up  the  ex- 
perience. Hence  if  individual  mental  development  does  not 
epitomize  race  development  and  yet  it  be  true  that  man  has 
developed,  then  the  'race  experience  hypothesis'  becomes 
absolutely  essential  to  genetic  psychology,  just  as  animal 
physiology  would  be  the  main  resource  of  human  morphology 
if  the  animal  embryos  did  not  show  Recapitulation.1 

The  probabilities  point,  therefore,  from  the  side  of  the 
phylogenesis  of  mind  to  very  marked  modifications  of  the 
race  record  in  the  growth  of  the  individual.  They  may 
finally  have  to  be  stated  even  more  strongly  than  the  purely 
nervous  ones  are  stated,  e.g.  by  Balfour,  who  says:  "The 
time  and  sequence  of  the  development  of  parts  is  often 
modified,  and  finally  secondary  structural  features  make  their 
appearance  to  fit  the  embryo  or  larva  for  special  conditions 
of  existence.  .  .  .  Like  the  scholar  with  his  manuscript,  the 
embryologist  has  by  a  process  of  careful  and  critical  examina- 
tion to  determine  where  the  gaps  are  present,  to  detect  the 
later  insertions,  and  to  place  in  order  what  has  been  mis- 
placed";2 and  by  Marshall:  "It  is  indeed  a  history,  but  a 
history  of  which  entire  chapters  are  lost,  while  in  those  that 
remain  many  pages  are  misplaced  and  others  are  so  blurred 

1  An  interesting  line  of  inquiry  has  recently  been  opened  up  into  what  is 
known  as  'Neuroses  of  Development'  (cf.  Clouston's  book  with  that  title) 
i.e.  the   nervous  conditions  which  arise  from  the  fact  of  development  itself'. 
These  states  arise  at  the  crises,  bridges,  'short-cuts,'  in  the  individual's  de- 
velopment; such  as  the  preliminaries  of  puberty,  which  probably  represent 
a  great  series  of  phylogenetic  changes.     The  theory  of  'race  experience'  as 
social  —  not  physical  —  heredity  is  worked  out  in  Social  and  Ethical  Inter- 
pretations, Chap.  II. 

2  Comparative  Embryology,  p.  3. 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  27 

as  to  be  illegible  .  .  .  and  worse  still,  alterations  or  spurious 
additions  have  been  freely  introduced  by  later  hands,  and  at 
times  so  cunningly  as  to  defy  detection." 

II.  The  second  great  consideration  pertains  to  the  period 
of  infancy,  using  the  term  'infancy'  to  cover  the  entire  period 
of  an  organism's  life  from  germination  to  independent  exist- 
ence with  power  to  support  life  alone. 

The  bearing  of  the  length  of  the  extra-uterine  period  of 
infancy  —  the  usual  meaning  of  the  term  —  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  the  creature  has  been  shown  by  Fiske  and  others  to 
be  highly  important.  Children  are,  during  their  long  in- 
fancy, given  parental  care  and  artificial  protection,  and  so 
enabled  to  develop  slowly  to  maturity,  with  all  the  practice 
in  the  acquisition  of  movements  and  in  general  adaptation  to 
artificial  conditions  of  living,  etc.,  which  the  human  intel- 
lectual and  social  environment  of  the  adult  demands.  A 
long  infancy  period  is  accordingly  necessary  to  his  being  a 
man ;  the  child  must  have  time,  nourishment  and  protection 
during  the  time,  and  finally  instruction. 

Biologists  are  now  recognizing  a  corresponding  group  of 
modifying  circumstances  brought  to  bear  also  during  the 
prenatal  period,  which  is  simply  an  earlier  stage  of  infancy. 
The  course  of  development  of  the  embryo  is  dependent  upon 
the  presence  and  amount  of  food,  called  'food-yolk,'  which 
the  egg  supplies.  A  principle  has  been  formulated  which 
connects  the  ontogenetic  stages  of  growth  directly  with  the 
food-yolk  supply,  I.e.  a  plentiful  supply  of  food-yolk  tends 
to  a  direct  development  toward  maturity,  to  the  abbreviation, 
consequently,  of  the  recapitulation  process,  and  to  the  birth 
of  the  creature  ready  formed  for  separate  and  independent 
existence.1 

1  See  Marshall's  discussion  of  the  influence  of  the  food-yolk  supply,  Bio- 
logical Lectures,  XIII. 


28  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

In  this  matter  of  the  interpretation  of  the  whole  infancy 
period,  including  both  prenatal  and  postnatal  infancy,  how- 
ever, there  seem  to  be  two  influences  at  work  which  tend  to 
opposite  results.  We  have  seen  that  abundant  food  supply 
in  the  conditions  of  embryonic  or  prenatal  life  tends  to  swift 
development  and  developmental  abbreviation.  The  new- 
born animal  is  soon  fitted,  under  these  conditions,  for  in- 
dependent life  on  a  comparatively  high  level  of  competition. 
This  shortness  of  the  embryonic  period  seems  to  be  in  direct 
relation  to  the  shortness  or  entire  absence  of  the  postnatal 
infancy  period.  Being  thus  fitted  to  take  care  of  himself  by 
advanced  uterine  development,  he  does  not  need  after  birth 
the  artificial  care,  protection,  etc.,  of  other  infants. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  we  find  a  long  postnatal  infancy 
period,  as  in  the  case  of  the  child,  we  find  also  a  long 
antecedent  embryo  period,  in  'spite  of  the  abundant  food 
supply  afforded  by  the  placental  method  of  uterine  nourish- 
ment. 

The  difference  in  the  two  cases  seems  to  find  some  explana- 
tion when  we  look  at  the  nature  of  the  mental  endowment 
secured  in  each  case  respectively.  In  the  former  case  — 
that  of  swift  intra-uterine  preparation  for  immediate,  in- 
dependent life  —  the  goal  is  refined  and  varied  instinct,  a 
matter  of  organic  structure  secured  by  earlier  phylogenetic 
development:  so  the  pathway  of  progress  is  already  well 
trodden  and  the  young  organism  has  a  straight  road  to  grow 
along,  marked  out  by  its  hereditary  impulse.  So  the  stretch 
to  maturity  is  made  rapidly. 

In  the  case,  however,  of  long  infancy,  both  before  and 
after  birth,  the  mental  gifts  to  be  secured  are  of  a  kind  not 
already  crystallized  in  instinct.  The  hereditary  impulses  re- 
quire a  long  ontogenetic  evolution  in  each  individual.  So  in 
spite  of  all  the  favourable  conditions  of  abundant  food,  free- 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  29 

dom  from  disturbing  influences,  etc.,  the  creature  must  have 
both  one  and  the  other  period  at  its  longest. 

The  psychological  considerations  —  which  I  am  careful  to 
keep  to,  not  making  any  claim  to  biological  expertness  — 
would  seem  to  favour  some  such  formulation  as  the  follow- 
ing :  the  extra-uterine  infancy  period  is  to  the  mtra-uterine 
embryonic  period,  the  conditions  being  equally  favourable, 
as  the  amount  of  possible  ontogenetic  development  is  to  the 
amount  of  phylogenetic  development,  in  the  entire  working 
out  of  the  creature's  hereditary  impulse.  For  although  with 
creatures  of  instinct,  which  represent  much  phylogeny,  the 
sum  of  the  two  periods  is  short,  still  the  prenatal  infancy 
period  is  relatively  long,  while  with  creatures  of  intelligence, 
which  represent  much  ontogeny,  although  their  whole  period 
is  long,  yet  the  prenatal  infancy  period  is  relatively  short.1 

Furthermore,  a  great  class  of  mechanical  influences,  such 
as  external  strain  and  stress,  accidents,  sudden  changes  in 
environment,  cause  modifications  of  the  physiological  con- 
ditions, and  so  also  modifications  of  the  stages  of  growth 
during  the  whole  infancy  period.  Biologists  recognize  the 
need  of  restricting  their  expectations  of  recapitulation  to  cir- 
cumstances in  which  the  physiological  conditions  have  been 
normal. 

The  great  cause,  however,  of  departures  from  the  series 
demanded  by  the  theory  of  recapitulation  in  a  given  case  is 
that  which  is  known  in  general  biology  technically  as  'for- 
tuitous' or  'spontaneous  variation.'  The  law  upon  the  basis 
of  which  natural  selection  gets  application  in  the  preservation 
of  adult  organisms  —  the  law  of  supply,  by  which  a  great 
variety  of  forms  is  secured  to  select  from  —  this  law  applies 
none  the  less  to  immature  organisms.  Not  only  do  the 

1  That  is,  both  the  time  ratios  and  the  development  ratios  are  large  or 
small  together. 


30  Infant   and  Race   Psychology 

fittest  adults  survive,  but  also  the  fittest  embryos  develop. 
And  it  is  only  a  further  application  of  the  same  truth  —  an 
application  recently  put  in  evidence  by  Weismann  (Romanes 
Lecture,  Oxford,  1894),  under  the  term  'Intra-Selection' — 
that  single  organs  of  one  and  the  same  creature  are  subject 
to  such  selection.1  It  is  easy  then  to  see  that  the  actual 
course  of  development  of  an  organism  along  the  line  of 
stages  marked  out  by  the  earlier  race  development  might  be 
disturbed  at  any  point  by  the  operation  of  natural  selection. 
For  under  new  conditions  an  embryo  which  departs  in  some 
way  from  the  series  demanded  by  recapitulation  may  by  that 
very  fact  be  fitted  to  survive,  and  so  be  seized  upon  by  natural 
selection.2  Sedgwick  maintains  also  that  variations  found  in 
adult  forms  are  also  reflected  in  the  embryo.  He  says  in  the 
paper  referred  to  in  the  last  note  (p.  41):  "Variations  do 
not  merely  affect  the  non-early  period  of  life  where  they  are 
of  immediate  functional  importance  to  the  animal,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  they  are  inherent  in  the  germ  and  affect  more 
or  less  profoundly  the  whole  of  development." 

Coming  back  to  mental  development,  we  should  expect  to 
find  a  similar  state  of  things:  the  recapitulation  of  mental 
stages  in  the  history  of  the  child  should  show  similar  breaks. 
Abundant  'food  supply'  in  the  shape  of  lessons,  rich  sugges- 

1  Cf.  the  theory  of  motor  adaptation  developed  below  (Chap.  VII.). 

2  This  influence  of  '  variation '  does  not  seem  to  have  had  sufficient  empha- 
sis by  embryologists ;   but  see  the  illustrations  of  it  given  by  Marshall,  who, 
nevertheless,  rather  leaves  it  to  be  assumed  than  definitely  states  it.     The  re- 
cent paper  by  Sedgwick,  Quarterly  Journal  of  Microscopic  Science  (April, 
1894),  endeavours,  however,  to  reconstruct  the  theory  of  recapitulation  in 
view  of  the  facts  of  variation.     He  finds  that  only  those  stages  of  ancestral 
form  are  preserved  in  embryos  which  represent  conditions  of  larval  existence 
in  the  ancestral  line,  the  point  being  that  the  independent  life  of  larvae  have 
required  the  full  development  of  organs  for  actual  functions  and  so  secured 
their  preservation  in  the  later  series  of  embryonic  changes,  the  change  from 
larval  to  embryonic  development  being  due  to  variation. 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  31 

tions  in  its  social  and  educational  life,  urging  forward  in 
tasks  of  mind,  etc.,  should  give  precocious  mental  develop- 
ment in  the  sense  of  early  maturity  of  mind.  The  stages 
normally  prescribed  for  natural  growth  may  thus  be  abbre- 
viated. The  same  effect  is  produced  also  by  accidents  of 
environment.  Newsboys  and  street  gamins  become  sharp 
and  mentally  agile  to  a  phenomenal  degree  from  their  method 
of  life,  while  boys  reared  in  the  artificial  seclusion  and  soli- 
tude of  the  single  son,  educated  by  a  tutor  in  his  father's 
house,  show  the  contrary  character. 

The  fact  of  variation,  however,  should  here,  as  on  the 
biological  side,  have  supreme  emphasis.  No  two  children 
are  alike.  This  is  a  commonplace ;  but  its  true  meaning  is 
not  a  commonplace.  Its  meaning  is  not  limited  to  the  fact 
that  the  child  A  has  a  different  temperament,  different 
tastes,  different  memory  type,  etc.,  from  the  child  B.  It 
means  further  that  this  difference  is  the  only  means  to  human 
progress,  —  the  only  supply  of  material  for  the  selection  of  the 
fittest  under  the  action  of  a  progressive  social  environment. 

I  do  not  care  to  enlarge  here  upon  the  extraordinary1 
pedagogical  aspects  of  this  theme,  though  they  are  well 
worth  attention.  I  note  it  here  as  a  fact  important  in  the 
theory  of  mental  development.  If  it  be  a  fact,  then  all 
infant  observations  should  be  read  in  the  light  of  it.  No 
child's  deeds  should  be  given  universal  value  without  a 
critical  examination,  before  which  even  the  most  competent 
psychologist  might  well  quail.  For  how  do  we  know  that 
this  child  has  not  had  artificial  rearing  so  far  in  its  life,  how 
know  that  he  has  not  experienced  accidents  of  environment 
which  produce  those  'developmental  conveniences'  of  mental 
behaviour  which  psychologists  may  recognize  as  artificial 
short-cuts  from  one  stage  of  growth  to  another;  how  know 
1  See  the  relative  chapters  in  the  writer's  Story  of  the  Mind. 


32  Infant  and  Race   Psychology 

that  he  does  but  show  anachronisms  of  development  forced 
upon  him  by  malformation  of  brain,  body,  or  limb  ?  Or  is 
he  not  himself  in  some  important  respect  —  as  to  filial  in- 
stinct, premature  sexuality,  unusually  strong  or  early  thrill  of 
nervous  emotion,  etc.  —  a  variation,  for  life  or  for  speedy 
death?  We  do  not  know. 

If  the  morphologist,  whose  specimens  are  laid  out  on  glass 
and  bottled  in  jars,  is  confused  by  the  perpetual  anomalies  of 
recapitulation,  which  make  it  necessary  for  him  to  arm  him- 
self with  all  the  cautions  formulated  by  Balfour,  Marshall, 
Adam  Sedgwick,1  and  others;  then  where  is  the  morpholo- 
gist of  mind,  whose  specimens  are  hidden  behind  all  the 
screens  of  social  convention,  maternal  pride  and  tenderness, 
and  all  the  homely  realities  of  ignorant  nursery  customs? 
All  he  can  get  is  an  occasional  snap-shot  at  a  baby.  And, 
alas,  this  is  more  than  most  psychologists  seem  to  want ! 

We  are  obliged,  therefore,  to  modify  even  further  the 
principle  which  seemed  safe  in  our  earlier  paragraph,  i.e. 
that  the  order  of  an  infant's  stages  of  development  might  be 
considered  constant.  It  is  only  true  if  we  know  that  the 
'stage'  is  really  a  universal  and  regular  stage.  To  be  such 
it  must  lie  between  two  other  'stages'  just  as  universal  and 
regular.  With  this  caution  we  may  use  the  rule  with  two 
very  different  degrees  of  value,  according  as  we  are  dealing 
with  the  ontogeny  of  man  or  with  his  phylogeny,  —  with 
what  a  human  mind  goes  through  from  cradle  to  grave  on 
one  hand,  and  with  what,  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  take 
from  this  development,  as  representing  the  race  history  of 
man,  either  the  history  of  the  species  or  the  wider  reach  of 
animal  race  history. 

For  it  is  clear  that  the  stages  of  human  life  history  may  be 
built  up  from  a  wide  series  of  observations  of  different  chil- 

1  In  Quarterly  Journal  of  Microscopic  Science,  April,  1894. 


Variations   in    Ontogeny  33 

dren  under  varied  conditions.  So  the  embryologists  establish 
the  ontogeny  of  a  species  with  great  exactness  and  nicety  of 
observation.  In  this  way  the  widest  reports  of  single  ob- 
servers of  children  get  their  value  —  a  value  for  science,  and 
especially  for  education. 

But  such  a  science  as  comparative  mental  morphology  — 
and  even  worse,  that  of  mental  embryology  —  is  at  present 
a  chimera.  How  can  we  say  anything  about  recapitulation 
when  we  know  so  little  about  mental  ontogeny  and  less,  per- 
haps, about  comparative  mental  physiology  ? l  In  popular 
phrase,  that  is:  how  can  we  compare  the  development  of 
the  infant  with  that  of  the  animal  series,  when  we  know 
neither  how  the  child  develops  nor  what  is  actually  taking 
place  in  his  consciousness,  in  any  great  detail,  at  any  stage 
to  which  he  may  have  developed  ? 

1  As  treated  in  'Individual'  and  'Class*  Psychology. 


CHAPTER  II 

A  NEW  METHOD  or  CHILD  STUDY 
§  i.  Critical 

THE  current  discussions  of  the  more  elementary  mental 
processes  show  that  we  lack  clearness  in  our  conceptions  of 
the  earlier  stages  of  mental  life.  This  is  evident  enough  to 
call  out  frequent  appeals  for  'scientific'  child  study.  The  word 
'scientific'  is  all  right,  as  far  as  it  goes;  but  as  soon  as  we 
come  to  ask  what  constitutes  scientific  child  study,  and  why  it 
is  that  we  have  so  little  of  it,  we  find  no  clear  answer;  and 
we  go  on  as  before,  accepting  the  same  anecdotes  of  fond 
mothers  and  repeating  the  observations  of  Egger  and  Max 
Miiller.1 

Now  there  are  only  two  ways  of  studying  a  child,  as  of 
studying  any  other  object  —  observation  and  experiment. 
But  who  can  observe,  and  who  can  experiment?  Who  can 
look  through  a  telescope  and  'observe'  a  new  satellite?  Only 
a  skilful  astronomer.  Who  can  hear  a  patient's  hesitating 
speech  and  'observe'  aphasia?  Only  a  neurologist.  Ob- 
servation means  the  acutest  exercise  of  the  discriminating 
faculty  of  the  scientific  specialist.  And  yet  many  of  the 
observations  which  we  have  in  this  field  were  made  by  the 
average  mother,  who  knows  less  about  the  human  body  than 
she  does  about  the  moon  or  a  wild  flower,  or  by  the  average 

1  See,  for  example,  the  uncriticised  anecdotes  given  in  Bully's  Studies  in 
Childhood. 

34 


Critical  35 

father,  who  sees  his  child  for  an  hour  a  day,  when  the  boy 
is  dressed  up,  and  who  has  never  slept  in  the  same  room 
with  him  in  his  life;  by  people  who  have  never  heard  the 
distinction  between  reflex  and  voluntary  action,  or  that  be- 
tween nervous  adaptation  and  conscious  selection.  Only  the 
psychologist  can  'observe'  the  child,  and  he  must  be  so 
saturated  with  his  information  and  his  observations  that  the 
conduct  of  the  child  becomes  instinct  with  meaning  for  the 
theories  of  mind  and  body. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  all  faithful  recording  is  of  im- 
portance, and  that  this  may  be  done  by  all  those  who  can  be 
thoroughly  objective  and  unprejudiced  in  the  presence  of 
children.  I  believe  that  many  parents  can  do  this  with  very 
great  accuracy ;  but  there  remains  still  the  uncertainty,  when 
such  records  are  taken  up  for  interpretation,  as  to  whether 
the  parent  or  nurse,  in  a  particular  case,  has  been  free  from 
the  influences  of  affection,  pride,  jealousy,  etc.  On  the 
whole,  judging  from  the  records  in  this  branch  of  psychology, 
the  science  would  better  wait  till  its  competent  workers 
realize  'their  opportunities  and  seriously  study  the  children 
for  themselves. 

And  as  for  'experiment,'  greater  still  is  the  need.  Many  a 
thing  a  child  is  said  to  do,  a  little  judicious  experimenting  — 
a  little  arrangement  of  the  essential  requirements  of  the  act 
in  question  —  shows  it  is  altogether  incapable  of  doing. 
But  to  do  this  we  must  have  our  theories,  and  have  our 
critical  moulds  arranged  beforehand.  That  most  vicious 
and  Philistine  attempt  in  some  quarters  to  put  science  in  the 
strait-jacket  of  barren  observation,  to  draw  the  life-blood  of 
all  science  —  speculative  advance  into  the  meaning  of  things 
—  this  ultra-positivistic  cry  has  come  here  as  everywhere  else, 
and  put  a  ban  upon  theory.  On  the  contrary,  give  us  theories, 
theories,  always  theories  !  Let  every  man  who  has  a  theory 


36  A   New   Method  of  Child  Study 

pronounce  his  theory !  This  is  just  the  difference  between 
the  average  mother  and  the  good  psychologist  —  she  has  no 
theories,  he  has;  he  has  no  interests,  she  has.  She  may 
bring  up  a  family  of  a  dozen  and  not  be  able  to  make  a 
single  trustworthy  observation;  he  may  be  able,  from  one 
sound  of  one  yearling,  to  confirm  theories  of  the  neurologist 
and  educator,  which  are  momentous  for  the  future  training 
and  welfare  of  the  child. 

In  the  matter  of  experimenting  with  children,  therefore, 
our  theories  must  guide  our  work  —  guide  it  into  channels 
which  are  safe  for  the  growth  of  the  child,  stimulating  to  his 
powers,  definite  and  enlightening  in  the  outcome.  All  this  was 
largely  lacking,  until  recently,  both  in  'child  psychology' 
and  in  applied  pedagogy.  The  implications  of  physiological 
and  mental  are  so  close  in  infancy,  the  mere  animal  can  do 
so  much  to  ape  reason,  and  the  rational  is  so  helpless  under 
the  leading  of  instinct,  impulse,  and  external  necessity,  that 
the  task  is  excessively  difficult  —  to  say  nothing  of  the 
extreme  delicacy  and  tenderness  of  the  budding  tendrils  of 
the  mind.  Experiment?  Every  time  we  send  a  child  out  of 
the  home  to  the  school,  we  subject  him  to  experiment  of  the 
most  serious  and  alarming  kind.  He  goes  to  a  teacher  who 
may  perchance  be  not  only  not  wise  unto  the  child's  sal- 
vation, but  on  the  contrary  a  machine  for  administering  a 
single  experiment  to  an  infinite  variety  of  children.  It  is 
highly  probable  that  two  in  every  three  children  are  more 
or  less  damaged  or  hindered  in  their  mental  and  moral 
development  in  the  school ;  but  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  they 
would  fare  any  better  if  they  stayed  at  home  !  The  children 
are  experimented  with  so  much  and  so  unwisely,  in  any  case, 
that  it  is  possible  that  a  little  intentional  experiment,  guided 
by  real  insight  and  psychological  information,  would  do  them 
good. 


Critical  37 

With  this  preamble,  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  a  possible 
method  of  experimenting  with  children.1  In  endeavoring 
to  bring  questions  like  the  degree  of  memory,  recognition, 
association,  etc.,  present  in  an  infant,  to  a  practical  test, 
considerable  embarrassment  has  always  been  experienced  in 
construing  the  child's  responses  safely.  Of  course  the  only 
way  a  child's  mind  can  be  studied  is  through  its  expression 
—  facial,  lingual,  vocal,  muscular ;  and  the  first  question,  i.e. 
What  did  the  infant  do?  must  be  followed  by  a  second, 
i.e.  What  did  his  doing  that  mean  ?  And  the  second  question 
is,  as  I  have  said,  the  harder  question,  and  the  one  which 
requires  more  knowledge  and  insight.  It  is  evident,  on  the 
surface,  that  the  farther  away  we  get  in  the  child's  life  from 
simple  inherited  or  reflex  responses,  the  more  complicated 
do  the  responsive  processes  become,  and  the  greater  becomes 
the  difficulty  of  analyzing  them,  and  arriving  at  a  true  pic- 
ture of  the  real  mental  condition  which  lies  back  of  them. 

To  illustrate  this  confusion,  I  may  cite  about  the  one 
problem  which  psychologists  have  attempted  to  solve  by  ex- 
periments on  children:  the  determination  of  the  order  of 
rise  of  the  child's  perceptions  of  the  different  qualities  of 
colour.  Preyer  starts  by  showing  a  child,  among  other 
methods,  various  colours  and  requiring  the  child  to  name 
them,  the  results  being  expressed  in  percentages  of  true 
answers  to  the  whole  number.  Now  this  experiment  involves 
no  less  than  four  different  questions,  and  the  results  give 
absolutely  no  clue  to  their  analysis.  It  involves:  i.  The 
child's  distinguishing  of  different  colours  simultaneously  dis- 
played before  it,  i.e.  the  complete  development  of  the  child's 
colour  sensation  apparatus;  2.  The  child's  ability  to  recog- 

1  My  first  discussion  of  it  was  in  Science,  New  York,  April  21,  1893. 
The  work  of  Warner,  The  Development  of  Mental  Faculty,  also  proceeds 
upon  the  study  of  movement. 


38  A    New   Method  of  Child  Study 

nize  or  identify  a  colour  after  having  seen  it  once;  3.  An 
association  between  the  child's  colour-seeing  and  word  hear- 
ing and  speaking  memories,  by  which  the  name  is  brought  up ; 
4.  Equally  ready  facility  in  the  pronunciation  of  the  various 
colour  names  which  the  child  recognizes:  and  there  is  the 
further  embarrassment,  that  any  such  process  which  involves 
association,  is  as  varied  as  the  lives  of  children.  The  single 
fact  that  speech  is  acquired  long  after  objects  and  some 
colours  are  distinguished,  shows  that  such  results  are  worth- 
less as  far  as  the  problem  of  colour  perception  is  concerned. 

That  the  fourth  element  pointed  out  above  is  a  real  source 
of  confusion  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  children  recognize 
many  words  which  they  cannot  pronounce  readily.  This 
represents  the  second  phase  in  the  development  of  this  ex- 
perimental problem.  Another  method  used  by  Preyer  and 
Binet  avoids  this  difficulty.  The  experimenter  varied  the 
conditions  by  naming  a  colour  and  then  requiring  the  child 
to  pick  out  the  corresponding  colour.  This  gave  results 
different  from  those  of  the  first  method.  For  example, 
Preyer's  child  identified  yellow  better  than  any  other  colour, 
a  result  which  no  one  has  confirmed ;  it  is  negatived  by  the 
results  of  Garbini  (Arch,  per  I'Anthrop.  e  I'EinoL,  XXIV., 
1894,  Nos.  i,  2). 

The  further  objection  that  colours  might  be  distinguished 
before  the  word-association  is  established  at  all,  or  that 
colour-words  might  be  interchanged  or  confused  by  the  child,1 
is  also  seen  by  Binet,2  and  his  attempt  to  eliminate  that  source 
of  error  constitutes  what  we  may  call  the  third  stage  in  the 

1  A  good  instance  of  such  confusion,  between  red  and  blue,  and  its  correct 
interpretation,  is  given  by  Miss  Shinn,  Notes  on  the  Development  of  a  Child, 
Part  I.,  pp.  38  and  50. 

2  Professor  Preyer  later  wrote  me,  that  he  also  saw  this  in  1882;  but  his 
experiments  appear  of  doubtful  success  (see  Mind  oj  the  Child,  English 
translation,  Pt.  I.,  pp.  n,  15,  19). 


Critical  39 

statement  of  the  problem.  He  adopts  the  methode  de  recon- 
naissance as  preferable  to -the  methode  d' appellation.  This 
consisted,  in  his  experiments,  in  showing  to  a  child  a  coloured 
counter,  and  then  asking  the  child  to  pick  out  the  same 
colour  from  a  number  of  different  coloured  counters. 

This  reduces  the  question  to  the  second  of  the  four  I  have 
named  above.  It  is  the  usual  method  of  testing  for  colour- 
blindness. It  answers  very  well  for  colour-blindness;  for 
what  we  really  want  to  learn  in  the  case  of  a  sailor  or  a 
signalman  is  whether  he  can  recognize  a  determined  colour 
when  it  is  repeated ;  that  is,  does  he  know  green  or  red  to  be 
the  same  as  his  former  experience  of  green  or  red?  But  it 
is  evident  that  there  is  still  a  more  fundamental  question  in 
the  matter  —  the  real  question  of  colour  perception.  It  is 
quite  possible  a  child  might  not  recognize  an  isolated  colour 
quality  when  he  could  really  very  well  distinguish  colour  quali- 
ties side  by  side.  It  is  the  question  just  now  coming  to  the 
front,  the  question  of  absolute  vs.  relative  recognition,  or 
immediate  vs.  mediate  recognition.1  The  last  question  is 
this :  When  does  the  child  get  the  different  colour  sensations 
(not  recognitions),  and  in  what  order? 

A  further  point  of  criticism  of  Binet's  results  serves  to 
illustrate  my  argument.  Binet  rules  out  the  influence  of  the 
word  memories  which  embarrassed  Preyer's  results,  by  his 
methode  de  reconnaissance.  The  child  recognizes  again  the 
colour  just  seen.  Now  those  who  have  followed  the  course 
of  recent  discussions  of  recognition  will  remember  that  the 
mediation  of  word-associations  is  not  ruled  out  in  these  cases 
in  children  of  three  to  five  years  old  or  even  younger.  Leh- 
mann  finds  coloured  wools  are  recognized  when  the  colours 
are  those  whose  names  are  known  (Benennungsassociation), 

1  See  the  discussion  of  the  question  of  tone  recognition,  below,  Chap. 
XIV.,  §  3. 


40  A    New   Method  of  Child  Study 

and  that  shades  which  have  not  peculiar  names,  or  whose 
names  are  not  known,  are  not  recognized.  Others  have 
held  that  an  unobserved  or  unintelligible  element  —  a 
Nebenvorstellung  —  may  serve  as  the  link  of  recognition 
without  rising  again  to  clear  consciousness  a  second  time.  It 
is,  of  course,  useless,  if  these  results  be  trustworthy,  to  attempt 
to  get  recognitions  clear  of  word  memories  after  colour  names 
have  once  been  learned  by  the  child.  It  would  seem  that 
the  question  ought  to  be  taken  up  with  younger  children. 
Binet's  experiments  were  in  the  interval  between  the  child's 
thirty-second  and  fortieth  months.  It  is  perhaps  a  con- 
firmation of  Lehmann's  position,  that  the  colours  least 
recognized  in  Binet's  list  are  shades  whose  names  are  less 
familiar  to  children;  his  list,  in  order  of  certainty  of  recog- 
nition, is  red,  blue,  green,  rose,  maroon,  violet,  and  yellow, 
by  the  methode  d' appellation;  and,  by  both  methods  together, 
red,  blue,  orange,  maroon,  rose,  violet,  green,  white,  and 
yellow.1 

§  2.  Expository 

This  colour  question  may  suffice  to  make  clear  the  essen- 
tials of  a  true  experimental  method.  Only  when  we  catch 
the  motor  response,  or  a  direct  reflex,  in  its  simplicity,  is  it  a 
true  index  of  the  sensory  stimulus  in  its  simplicity.  I  have 
accordingly  attempted  to  reach  a  method  of  child  study  of 
such  a  character  as  to  yield  a  series  of  experiments  whose 
results  would  be  in  terms  of  the  most  fundamental  motor 
reactions  of  the  infant,  which  could  be  easily  and  pleasantly 
conducted,  and  which  would  be  of  wide  application.  The 
child's  hand  movements  are,  I  think,  the  most  nearly  ideal 

1  Calculated  from  Binet's  detailed  results  (Revue  Philosophique,  1890,  II., 
582  ff.)  by  Mr.  F.  Tracy;  see  his  book,  The  Psychology  of  Childhood,  p.  14, 
and  cf.  the  results  of  my  own  experiments  below,  Chap.  IV.,  §  i. 


Expository  41 

in  this  respect.  The  hand  reflects  the  first  stimulations,  the 
most  stimulations,  and,  becoming  the  most  mobile  and  execu- 
tive organ  of  volition,  attains  the  most  varied  and  interesting 
offices  of  utility.  We  have  spontaneous  arm  and  hand  move- 
ments, reflex  movements,  reaching-out  movements,  grasping 
movements,  imitative  movements,  manipulating  movements, 
and  voluntary  efforts  —  all  these,  in  order,  reflecting  the 
development  of  the  mind.  The  organs  of  speech  are  only 
later  brought  into  use,  and  their  use  for  speech  involves  an 
already  high  development  of  mind,  hence  the  error  in  many 
results.  It  has  accordingly  seemed  to  me  worth  while  to 
find  whether  a  child's  reaching  movements  would  reflect  with 
any  degree  of  regularity  the  modifications  of  its  sensibility,1 
and,  if  so,  how  far  this  could  be  made  a  method  of  experi- 
menting with  young  children.2 

I  may  adduce  one  or  two  considerations  which  tend  to 
show  that  some  such  '  dynamogenic '  method  is  theoretically 
valid.  There  are  some  results  already  recognized  in  the 
psychology  of  sense  and  movement  which  lend  confirmation 
to  this  idea.  The  facts  that  the  most  motile  organs  have 
acutest  sensibility,  notably  the  hand  and  fingers;  that  cer- 
tain marked  types  of  action,  such  as  imitation,  arise  early  in 
connection  with  the  hand ;  that  the  central  organic  prepara- 
tion for  volition  is  secured  first  in  the  arrangements  for 
hand  movements,3  —  all  these  facts  indicate  that  the  hand 

1  Illustrating  'dynamogenesis,'  the  general  principle  that  "  every  stimulus 
has  motor  force"  (see  my  Handbook  of  Psychol.,  Feeling  and  Will, 
pp.  28,  281). 

2 The  suggestion  of  Mrs.  Ladd  Franklin  (The  Psychological  Review,  I., 
1894,  p.  202)  is  quite  in  accord  with  this  requirement,  i.e.  that  Sach's  dis- 
covery of  reflex  changes  in  the  width  of  the  pupil  when  certain  colours  are 
looked  at  might  be  used  to  test  the  colour  sensations  of  very  young  children. 

8  Soltmann ;  cf .  the  chapter  below  on  the  '  Origin  of  Volition,'  especially 
pp.  421,  424. 


42  A    New   Method  of  Child  Study 

movements  are  the  best  index  of  general  and  special  sensi- 
bility in  the  infant.  Fere  maintains  that  sensory  stimulations 
of  all  kinds  increase  the  maximum  hand  pressure.  Colours 
seen  have  regular,  and  each  its  peculiar,  effect  upon  move- 
ment. Tones  have  similar  influence.  The  ticking  of  a 
watch  is  more  clearly  perceived  if  movements  are  made  at 
the  same  time.  Further,  the  reaction-time  of  hand  move- 
ments is  shorter  if  the  stimulus  (sound,  etc.)  be  more  intense. 
There  is  an  enlargement  of  the  hand,  through  increased  blood 
pressure,  when  a  loud  sound  is  heard.  The  fact  of  muscle- 
reading,  and  its  experimental  demonstration  by  Gley  and 
Jastrow,  together  with  the  series  of  facts  shown  by  recent 
experiments  in  so-called  '  unconscious  movements '  by  diseased 
patients,1  —  these,  and  a  variety  of  other  facts  upon  which 
the  law  of  'dynamogenesis'  rests,  seem  to  afford  justification 
for  the  view  that  the  infant's  hand  movements  in  reaching 
and  grasping  are  the  best  index  of  the  kind  and  intensity  of 
its  sensory  experiences.  Magendie 2  long  ago  suggested 
measuring  changes  in  sensibility  by  the  corresponding  changes 
in  blood  pressure. 

Further,  it  is  not  necessary  to  embarrass  ourselves  with 
the  question  whether  the  hand  movements  are  voluntary 
or  not.  However  we  may  differ  as  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  rise  of  volition,  it  is  still  true  that  after  its  rise  the 
child's  reactions  are  for  a  long  time  quite  under  the  lead  of 
its  sensory  life.  It  lives  so  fully  in  the  immediate  present 
and  so  closely  in  touch  with  its  environment,  that  the 
influences  which  lead  to  movement  can  be  detected  with 
great  regularity.  In  this  case  the  sensations  which  are 
stimuli  to  movement  become  what  we  may  also  call  'effort 
stimuli,7  and  the  child's  efforts  with  his  hands  become 
indications  of  the  relative  degree  of  discrimination,  attractive- 
1  Binet,  Janet.  2  Fere",  Sensation  el  Mouvement,  p.  56. 


Expository  43 

ness,  etc.,  of  the  different  sensations  which  call  the  efforts 
out. 

Suppose  we  hang  up  a  piece  of  meat  over  Carlo's  head  and 
tell  him  to  jump  for  it.  His  first  jump  falls  short  of  the 
meat.  He  jumps  again  and  clears  a  greater  distance.  Why 
does  he  jump  farther  the  second  time?  Not  because  he 
argues  that  a  harder  jump  is  necessary  to  secure  the  meat ; 
but  because  by  the  first  jump  he  got  more  smell,  blood  colour, 
and  appetite  stimulus  from  the  meat.  Now  suppose  it  to  be 
a  red  rag  instead  of  meat,  and  Carlo  refuse  to  jump  a  second 
time.  This  is  not  because  he  concludes  the  rag  would  choke 
him,  but  because  he  gets  a  kind  of  sensation  which  takes 
away  what  appetite  stimulus  he  had  before.  The  thing  is  a 
thing  of  sensational  dynamogeny  of  'suggestion/  and  the 
child's  state  of  mind  up  to  his  twenty-fourth  month,  more  or 
less,  is  just  about  the  same. 

The  following  questions,  I  think,  might  be  taken  up  by 
some  such  method  as  this :  — 

1.  The  presence  of  different  colour  sensations  as  shown  by 
the  number  and  persistence  of  the  child's  efforts  to  grasp  the 
colour:   the  problem  of  colour  perception. 

2.  The  relative  attractiveness  of  different  colours  measured 
in  the  same  way :  the  problems  of  colour  preference  and  dis- 
tinction. 

3.  The  relative  attractiveness  of  different  colour  combi- 
nations. 

4.  The  relative  exactness  of  distance  estimation  as  shown 
by  the  child's  efforts  to  reach  over  distances  for  objects. 

5.  The    relative    attractiveness    of   different    visual   out- 
lines (stars,  circles,  etc.)  cut  in  the  same  attractive  colour, 
etc. 

6.  The  relative  use  of  right,  left,  and  both  hands. 

7.  The  rise  of  imitative  movements. 


44  A    New   Method  of  Child  Study 

8.  The  rise  of  voluntary  movements. 

9.  The  presence  and  character  of  'accompanying  move- 
ments' at  different  stages  of  motor  development. 

10.  The  strength  of  desire  and  voluntary  inhibition  as 
shown  in  the  relative  persistence  of  movements  of  grasping. 

11.  The  relative  strength  of  disparate  sensations  at  dif- 
ferent periods  of  child  life,  as  shown  by  their  comparative 
expression  in  movement. 

12.  The  inhibiting  influence  of  elementary  associations, 
especially  pains,  punishments,  etc. 

I  am  quite  aware  of  the  meagreness  of  this  list ;  but  one 
has  only  to  remember  the  fact  that  there  is  no  such  thing  yet 
as  a  psycho-physics  of  the  active  life,  that  this  side  of  psy- 
chology is  almost  terra  incognita  to  the  experimentalist.1  If 
the  method  prove  reliable  in  one-half  of  these  questions,  then 
so  much  gain.  I  have  applied  it  to  some  of  them  in  a  more  or 
less  incomplete  way,  in  the  case  of  my  two  children,  H.  and 
E.,  both  girls,  with  the  results  recorded  in  subsequent  pages  of 
this  book.  In  each  case  below  I  take  occasion  to  say  to  what 
extent  the  results  are  of  real,  or  only  of  methodological,  value. 

§  3.   Formula  of  the  Dynamogenic  Method 

When  this  method  is  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  as  applied 
to  children  old  enough  to  reach  out  for  objects  which  they 

1  I  see  no  reason  that  a  method  could  not  be  devised  for  testing  the  motive 
influences  of  presentations  of  a  neutral  associational  character  in  terms  of  the 
time  elapsed  since  their  experience.  I  have  announced  elsewhere  (Proceed- 
ings of  Congress  for  Exper.  Psychology,  London,  1892)  the  first  results  of  a 
research  conducted  upon  adults  by  such  a  method  (see  the  experiments 
reported  below,  Chap.  XIII.,  §  4).  Professor  Miinsterberg  has  recently  sug- 
gested a  method  of  studying  the  influence  of  stimulations  upon  eye  move- 
ments, attention,  etc.,  which  is  also  dynamogenic  and  proceeds  upon 
somewhat  the  same  presuppositions  (The  Psychological  Review,  I.,  pp.  441 
ff.,  September,  1894). 


Formula   of  the   Dynamogenic   Method      45 

see,  two  variable  quantities  are  always  involved.  The 
reactions  will  vary  in  some  way  with  the  distance  of  the 
object  exposed,  and  also  in  some  way  with  the  kind  of  stim- 
ulus. For  example,  a  child  of  perhaps  eight  months  of 
age  reaches  after  an  orange,  when  it  is  eleven  inches  in  front 
of  him,  with  great  regularity;  but  very  irregularly,  or  pos- 
sibly not  at  all,  when  it  is  fourteen  inches  away.  Again,  he 
reaches  for  a  colour,  red,  when  perhaps  he  would  not  for  a 
colourless  object. 

If  we  take  the  simplest  cases  —  cases  in  which  observa- 
tion shows  the  responses  of  the  child  to  be  regular,  the  con- 
ditions of  quiet,  comfortable  position,  interest,  etc.,  being 
throughout  normal  and  undisturbed  —  we  may  consider 
these  two  things,  quality  and  distance,  as  the  only  important 
variables.  By  quality  is  meant  the  so-called  sensational 
character  of  the  stimulating  object.  If,  then,  we  further 
inquire  into  the  drawing-out  influence  of  various  stimula- 
tions, it  is  evident  that  it  will  vary  with  the  quality  (g),  and, 
in  some  inverse  ratio,  with  the  distance  (d).  In  other  words, 
naming  the  calling-out  or  dynamogenic  influence  of  a  stimu- 
lus D,  we  have  the  equation, 


in  which  K  is  the  sign  of  proportion. 

I  state  this  formula,  not  to  be  mathematical,  but  simply, 
by  ringing  the  changes  possible  through  substitution  of 
values,  to  illustrate  the  applications  of  the  method  and  the 
limits  of  the  general  principle  of  reaction.  If  q  be  kept 
constant,  experiments  will  determine  the  law  by  which  the 
influence  of  d  changes.  Again,  experiments  at  different 
ages  would  show  the  effect  on  d  of  experience  in  associating 
visual  distance  with  muscular  distance.  Again,  keeping  d 


46  A   New   Method  of  Child  Study 

constant,  experiments  would  show  the  value  of  various 
sense  qualities,  the  q  values. 

An  interesting  point  emerges  when  we  inquire  the  effect  of 
zero  and  infinity  values.  If  the  child,  for  example,  always 
reaches  for  a  colour  at  nine  inches,  this  would  be  practically 
the  case  of  d  =  o.  For,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  distance  then 
has  no  influence ;  the  whole  possible  variation  in  D  in  suc- 
cessive experiments  with  different  j's  is  due  to  the  ^-values 
themselves.  It  is  asked  at  once  why  the  influence  of  d  is 
not  equally  ruled  out  in  any  series  of  experiments  in  which  d 
is  kept  constant,  say  at  twelve  inches.  The  answer  is :  be- 
cause in  each  such  series  the  influence  of  d  changes  from  the 
fact  of  practice,  habit,  and  slight  fatigue.  If  the  child 
reaches  for  a  blue-g  at  twelve  inches,  and  just  gets  it,  he  may 
then  reach  for  a  green-g  with  greater  avidity  at  twelve  inches 
than  he  would  otherwise  have  reached  for  the  same  green-g 
at  nine  inches.  So  psychology  interferes  with  mathematics. 
The  value  for  d  =  o,  at  which  we  have  the  purest  influence  of 
q,  is  not  the  least  distance  possible,  but  the  child's  normal 
reaching  distance. 

Again,  if  the  child  just  refrains  from  reaching  for  a  q  at 
fourteen  inches,  this  means  practically  that  d  =  oo  ;  that  is, 
the  influence  of  d  is  so  all-important  that  it  shuts  out  all 
relative  ^-influences.  The  distance  inhibits  movement  alto- 
gether. But  just  here  another  psychological  factor  inter- 
feres with  the  mathematics;  in  some  cases  the  inhibition  of 
d  does  not  work,  and  the  child  oversteps  all  its  experience  in 
violent  straining  and  cries.  These  two  so-called  psycho- 
logical 'interferences'  are  referred  to  again  later  on,  the 
latter  being,  I  think,  the  main  external  channel  of  the  rise 
of  right-  or  left-handedness.1 

These  qualifications  make  it  evident  that  this  form  of 

1  See  below,  Chap.  IV. 


Formula   of  the   Dynamogenic   Method       47 

mathematical  statement  makes  only  —  what  most  appeals 
to  mathematics  in  psychology  are  —  an  artificial  show  of 
exactness.  This  method,  like  all  other  psychological  methods, 
must  be  used  with  a  thousand  cautions  and  as  many  failures ; 
and  the  last  condition  of  such  experiments,  as  the  first  condi- 
tion of  all  work  with  children,  is  sympathetic  insight  into 
their  mental  movements.  Only  such  sympathy  and  insight 
can  cope  with  the  subtle  responses  which  a  wide-awake 
child  makes  to  the  most  trifling  variations  in  our  treatment 
of  him. 

I  shall  now  give  further  facts  and  experiments  illustrating 
the  regularity  of  the  child's  reactions,  and  so  put  in  evidence 
the  general  principle  of  '  dynamogenesis/  upon  which  all 
motor  development,  both  in  the  child  and  in  the  race,  must 
ultimately  rest. 


PART   I 

EXPERIMENTAL  FOUNDATION 

CHAPTER   III 

DISTANCE  AND  COLOUR  PERCEPTION  BY  INFANTS 
§  i.  Experimental 

THE  method  called  '  dynamogenic '  has  been  explained 
in  earlier  pages.  The  application  of  it  to  particular  ques- 
tions now  demands  attention,  as  far  as  the  present  writer 
has  attempted  to  apply  it. 

It  is  evident,  as  was  said  before  in  speaking  of  the  infant's 
responses  in  reaching  for  objects,  that  in  any  particular 
case  the  element  of  distance  is  a  variable  quantity  to  be 
considered  with  the  influence  of  the  particular  stimulus  in 
question.  In  investigating  the  infant's  colour  sensations, 

therefore,  we  have  the  formula  D  =  -,  in  which  c  denotes 

a 

colour,  d,  distance,  and  D,  strength  of  dynamogeny,  as  already 
explained. 

I  undertook  at  the  beginning  of  my  child  H.'s  ninth  month 
to  experiment  with  her  with  a  view  to  arriving  at  the  exact 
state  of  her  colour  perception,  employing  this  new  method. 
The  arrangements  consisted  in  this  instance  in  giving  the 
infant  a  comfortable  sitting  posture,  kept  constant  by  a  band 
passing  around  her  chest  and  fastened  securely  to  the  back 
of  her  chair.  Her  arms  were  left  bare  and  quite  free  in  their 
48 


Experimental  49 

movements.  Pieces  of  paper  of  different  colours  were  suc- 
cessively exposed,  at  varying  distances,  front,  right,  and  left. 
This  was  regulated  by  a  framework,  consisting  of  a  horizontal 
rod  graded  in  inches,  projecting  from  the  back  of  the  chair 
at  a  level  with  her  shoulder  and  parallel  with  her  arm  when 
extended  straight  forward,  and  carrying  on  it  another  rod, 
also  graded  in  inches,  at  right  angles  to  the  first.  This 
second  rod  was  thus  a  horizontal  line  directly  in  front  of  the 
child,  parallel  with  a  line  connecting  her  two  shoulders,  and 
so  equally  distant  for  both  hands.  This  second  rod  was 
made  to  slide  upon  the  first,  so  as  to  be  adjusted  at  any  desir- 
able distance  from  the  child.  On  this  second  rod  the  colours, 
etc.,  were  placed  in  succession,  the  object  being  to  excite 
the  child  to  reach  for  the  colour. 

So  far  from  being  distasteful  to  the  infant,  I  found  that, 
with  pleasant  suggestions  thrown  about  the  experiments, 
the  whole  procedure  gave  her  very  evident  gratification, 
and  the  affair  became  one  of  her  pleasant  daily  occupa- 
tions. After  each  sitting  she  was  given  a  reward  of  some 
kind. 

The  accompanying  tables  give  the  results,  both  for  colour 
and  distance,  of  217  experiments.  Of  these  in  were  with 
five  colours  and  106  with  ordinary  newspaper  (chosen  as  a 
relatively  neutral  object,  which  would  have  no  colour  value 
and  no  association  to  the  infant).  In  the  tables  R  stands 
for  'refusal'  to  reach  out  for  the  object,  A  for  'acceptance' 
with  effort,  JV  for  the  entire  number  of  experiments  with 
each  colour  respectively,  and  n  for  the  entire  number  with  all 

the  colours  at  each  distance  respectively.     So  —  =  the  pro- 

•n 

portion  of  acceptances  or  efforts  for  any  colour,  and  —  =  the 

n 

proportion  of  refusals  for  each  distance. 


50     Distance  and  Colour  Perception  by  Infants 
TABLE  I 


Distance, 
Inches 

9 

10 

II 

R.A. 

12 

13 

14 

«5 

Totals. 

Ratio  £ 

Blue 

R.A. 
O—  I 

R.A. 
0-4 

R.A. 

R.A. 

R.A. 

A  .4. 

R.     A.     N. 

o-5 

i-3 

2-4 

'-5 

3-i 

7-23-30 

.766 

Red 

O—  I 

o-3 

2  —  2 

1-4 

!-7 

i-7 

5-i 

10-25-35 

.714 

White 

O  —  O 

O—  O 

O—  O 

O—  I 

o-S 

i  —  i 

3-o 

4-  7-" 

.636 

Green 

O  —  O 

O—  I 

O—  I 

2-1 

1-4 

1-2 

2-0 

6-  9-15 

.60 

Brown 
Totals 

Ratio  - 
n 

O—  I 

o-3 

O 

0-2 

2-1 

3-2 

o-3 

3-i 

2-0 

10—  IO  —  2O 

•5° 

0-10 

4-9 
•30 

7-ii 

4-23 

7-16 

"5-2 

37-74-"i 

.66 

O 

•39 

•*5 

•3i 

.88 

Total  .33 

TABLE   II 


Distance, 
Inches 

9 

IO 

II 

12 

13 

M 

*5 

Totals. 

«•*£ 

News- 
paper 

Colour 
Totals 

Ratio  | 

AX. 

R.A. 

R.A. 

R.  A. 

R.  A. 

AX. 

AX. 

A      X.      N. 

o-3 

0-10 

4-9 

4-9 

0-I7 

7-n 

0-28 
4-23 

i-33 
7-16 

25-2 
15-2 

26-    80-106 

37-  74-1" 

•754 
.666 

o-3 

O—  IO 

7-28 

4-51 

8-49 

40-4 

63-154-217 

•7i 

•3' 

.20 

.07 

.14 

.9I 

Total  .29 

From  these  tables  we  might  be  able  if  the  experiments 
were  of  sufficient  number  and  all  proper  precautions  had 


Experimental  5 1 

been  taken  —  on  which  points  the  next  paragraph  may  be 
read  —  to  conclude  important  results  for  the  perception  of 
colour  and  distance.    The  following  inferences,  indeed,  seem 
to  be  safely  drawn. 
Colour.  —  The  results  are  evident  in  the  tables  (I.  and  II.), 

especially  the  columns   marked  Ratio  —    and   Ratio    _. 

N  n 

The  colours  range  themselves  in  an  order  of  attractiveness,  i.e. 
blue,  red,  white,  green,  and  brown.  Disregarding  white,  the 
difference  between  blue  and  red  is  very  slight  compared  to 
that  between  any  other  two.  This  confirms  Binet  as  against 
Preyer,  who  puts  blue  last,  and  also  fails  to  confirm  Preyer 
in  putting  brown  before  red  and  green.  Brown  to  my 
child  —  as  tested  in  this  way  —  seemed  to  be  about  as 
neutral  as  could  well  be.  A  similar  distaste  for  brown  was 
noticed  in  the  child  observed  by  Miss  Shinn.1  White,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  more  attractive  than  green  and  slightly 
more  so  than  red.  I  am  sorry  that  my  list  does  not  include 
yellow.  The  newspaper  was,  at  reaching  distances  up  to 
14  inches,  as  attractive  as  any  of  the  colours,  and  even  more 
so;  but  this  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  the  newspaper 
experiments  came  after  a  good  deal  of  practice  in  reaching 
after  colours,  and  a  more  exact  association  between  the  stimu- 
lus and  its  distance;  an  influence  which  I  have  remarked 
upon  in  the  general  discussion,  above,1  of  the  formula  for 
the  method.  At  15  inches  and  over,  accordingly,  the  news- 
paper was  refused  in  more  than  93  per  cent  of  the  cases,  while 
blue  was  refused  at  that  distance  in  only  75  per  cent,  and  red 
in  83  per  cent. 

Distance.2  —  In  regard  to  the  question  of  distance,  the 
child  persistently  refused  to  reach  for  anything  put  16  inches 
or  more  away  from  her.    At  15  inches  she  refused  91  per 
1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  47.      2  See  also  the  remarks  in  Chap.  IV.,  §  2. 


52     Distance  and  Colour  Perception  by  Infants 

cent  of  all  the  cases,  90  per  cent  of  the  colour  cases,  and, 
as  I  have  said,  93  per  cent  of  the  newspaper  cases.  At  nearer 
distances  we  find  the  remarkable  uniformity  with  which  the 
sale-distance  association  works  at  this  early  age.  At  14 
inches  only  14  per  cent  of  all  the  cases  were  refused,  and  at 
13  inches  only  about  7  per  cent.  The  fact  that  there  was  a 
larger  percentage  of  refusals  at  10  and  12  inches  than  at 
13  and  14  inches,  is  seen  from  the  table  (I.)  to  be  due  to  the 
influence  of  the  brown,  which  was  refused  consistently  when 
more  than  10  inches  away.  The  fact  that  there  were  no 
refusals  to  reach  for  anything  exposed  within  reaching  dis- 
tance (10  inches)  —  other  attractive  objects  being  kept  away 
—  shows  two  things:  (i)  the  very  fine  estimation  visually 
of  the  distance  represented  by  the  arm  length,  thus  em- 
phasizing the  element  of  muscular  sensations  of  arm  move- 
ment in  the  perception  of  distance  generally;  and  (2)  the 
great  uniformity  at  this  age  of  the  phenomenon  of  'sensori- 
motor  suggestion'1  upon  which  this  method  of  child  study  is 
based.  In  respect  to  the  first  point,  it  will  be  remembered 
that  the  child  does  not  begin  to  reach  for  anything  that  it 
sees  until  the  fourth  or  sixth  week ;  so  it  is  evident  at  what  a 
remarkably  fast  rate  this  association  is  formed  between  arm 
movements  and  those  obscure  factors  of  size,  perspective,  light 
and  shade,  etc.,  which  signify  distance  to  the  eye ;  in  such  a 
way  that  the  inhibition  of  arm  movement  by  sensations 
from  the  other  sense,  vision,  is  secured  so  early. 

In  regard  to  the  relative  use  of  the  two  hands  in  these 
and  other  experiments,  —  this  is  a  topic  to  which  I  may 
devote  the  next  brief  chapter.2 

1  See  below,  Chap.  VI.,  §  3. 

2  Many  of  the  results  of  these  experiments  have  been  confirmed  by  Mr. 
R.  E.  Marsden  (see  his  papers  in  The  Psychological  Review,  1903,  pp.  37, 
297),  using  the  same  method. 


Critical  53 


§  2.  Critical 

It  is  in  place  to  recall  the  criticisms  already  offered  1  upon 
the  colour  experiments  of  Preyer  and  Binet.  I  think  the 
method  thus  applied  successfully  obviates  many  of  the 
difficulties  of  earlier  methods.  There  are  certain  other 
requirements  of  proper  procedure,  however,  which,  so  far  as 
I  am  aware,  have  never  been  duly  weighed  by  those  who 
have  experimented  with  young  children. 

In  the  first  place,  fatigue  is  a  matter  of  considerable  im- 
portance, not  only  on  this  method  but  on  any  other.  Again, 
the  child  is  peculiarly  susceptible  to  the  appeals  of  change, 
novelty,  chance,  or  happy  suggestion;  and  often  the  failure 
to  respond  to  a  stimulus  is  due  to  distraction  or  to  discomfort 
rather  than  to  lack  of  intrinsic  interesting  quality.  In  re- 
spect to  fatigue,  I  would  say  that  the  first  signs  of  restlessness, 
or  arbitrary  loss  of  interest,  in  a  series  of  stimulations,  is 
sufficient  warning,  and  all  attempts  at  further  experimenting 
should  cease.  Often  the  child  is  in  a  state  of  indisposition, 
of  trifling  nervous  irritability,  etc. ;  this  should  be  detected 
beforehand  and  then  nothing  should  be  undertaken.  No 
series  longer  than  three  trials  should  be  attempted  without 
changing  the  child's  position,  resting  its  attention  with  a  song 
or  a  game,  etc.,  and  thus  leading  it  fresh  to  its  'task'  again. 
Further,  no  single  stimulus,  as  a  colour,  should  be  twice 
repeated  without  a  change  to  some  other;  since  the  child's 
eagerness  or  alertness  is  somewhat  satisfied  by  the  first  effort 
and  a  new  thing  is  necessary  to  bring  him  out  to  full  exercise 
again.  Further,  after  each  effort  or  two  the  child  should  be 
given  the  object  reached  for  to  hold  or  play  with  for  a  moment ; 
otherwise  he  grows  to  apprehend  that  the  whole  affair  is  a 
1  Above,  Chap.  II.,  §  i. 


54     Distance  and  Colour  Perception  by  Infants 

case  of  Tantalus.  In  all  these  matters,  very  much  depends 
upon  the  knowledge  and  care  of  the  experimenter,  and  his 
ability  to  keep  the  child  in  a  normal  condition  of  pleasurable 
muscular  exercise  throughout.1 

Coming  to  colour  experiments,  several  requirements 
would  appear  to  be  necessary  for  exact  results.  Should  not 
the  colours  chosen  be  equal  in  purity,  intensity,  lustre, 
illumination,  etc.?  In  reference  to  these  qualitative  dif- 
ferences, —  those  which  are  really  important  in  order  to 
keep  our  symbol  constant  as  respects  all  but  the  qualitative 
colour  influence, — I  think  only  that  degree  of  care  need  be 
exercised  which  good  comparative  judgment  provides.  Colours 
of  about  equal  objective  intensity,  of  no  gloss,  of  relatively 
evident  spectral  purity,  under  constant  illumination,  —  this 
is  all  that  is  required ;  for  the  variations  due  to  the  grosser 
influences  I  have  mentioned,  such  as  condition  of  attention, 
physical  unrest,  disturbing  noises,  sights,  etc.,  are  of  greater 
influence  than  any  of  these  more  recondite  objective  variations 
in  the  stimulus.  Intensity  and  lustre,  however,  are  certainly 
important.  It  is  possible,  by  carefully  choosing  a  room  of 
pretty  constant  daylight  illumination,  and  setting  the  experi- 
ments at  the  same  hour  each  day,  to  secure  a  regular  degree 
of  brightness  if  the  colours  themselves  are  equally  bright; 
and  lustre  may  be  ruled  out  by  using  coloured  wools  or  blot- 
ting-papers. The  papers  used  by  myself  were  coloured 
blotting-papers,  which  I  selected  by  their  empirical  proper- 
ties as  good  for  the  purpose.  The  omission  of  yellow  is  due 
to  the  absence,  in  my  neighbourhood,  of  a  yellow  paper  that 
satisfied  me.  I  did  not  care  to  introduce  another  element  of 

1  It  is  on  account  of  my  extreme  care  in  these  points  that  the  number  of 
experiments  recorded  in  the  tables  in  this  chapter  is  so  small ;  as  it  was,  they 
extended  over  a  period  of  more  than  six  months.  I  was  then  obliged  to 
separate  myself  from  the  child,-  and  so  the  series  came  to  an  end. 


Critical  55 

uncertainty  in  the  way  of  change  of  texture  or  general  charac- 
ter as  to  shape,  form,  etc.,  as  an  altogether  different  object 
would  have  done. 

The  most  valid  criticism,  therefore,  on  the  tables  is  that 
which  exposes  the  small  number  of  experiments;  and  an 
examination  of  the  table  proves  it  well  taken.  It  has  been 
suggested  to  me  by  a  friend1  that  the  results  at  n,  12,  13, 
and  14  inches  might  be  taken  together  for  each  colour; 
since  the  element  of  distance  would  not  give  important 
variations  within  these  limits.  This,  it  will  be  seen,  how- 
ever, on  calculation,  does  not  alter  the  order  of  colour  prefer- 
ence, except  to  lay  more  emphasis  on  white. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  attach  some  little  importance  * 
to  the  experiments  apart  from  their  illustrative  value  and 
their  possible  stimulating  effect  upon  others  who  may  care 
to  extend  them.  Their  main  purpose  in  the  progress  and 
plan  of  this  book  is  seen  in  their  witness  to  the  regularity  of 
operation  of  the  principle  of  suggestion  or  dynamogenesis. 

1  Mrs.  C.  Ladd  Franklin,  who  wrote  to  me  kindly  about  the  papers  as 
originally  published  in  Science. 

2  For  example,  Preyer's  contention  (repeated  in  his  4th  ed.,  p.  14),  that 
the  child  has  no  colour  'distinctions'  in  his  first  two  years,  is  disproved  by 
these  results,  which  indicate  different  colour  perceptions  in  and  after  the 
ninth  month. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  RIGHT-HANDEDNESS 
§  i.  Experimental 

THE  question  'Why  are  we  right-  or  left-handed?'  has 
exercised  the  speculative  ingenuity  of  many  men.  It  has 
come  to  the  front  anew  in  recent  years,  in  view  of  the  ad- 
vances made  in  the  general  physiology  of  the  nervous  system ; 
and  certainly  we  are  now  in  a  better  position  to  set  the  problem 
intelligently  and  to  hope  for  its  solution.  Hitherto  the  actual 
conditions  of  the  rise  of  'dextrality'  in  young  children  —  as 
the  general  fact  of  uneven-handedness  may  be  called  — 
have  not  been  closely  observed.  It  was  to  gain  light,  there- 
fore, upon  the  facts  themselves  that  the  experiments  described 
in  the  following  pages  were  carried  out. 

My  child  H.  was  placed  in  a  comfortable  sitting  posture, 
the  arms  left  bare  and  free  in  their  movement,  and  allowed 
to  reach  for  objects  placed  before  her  in  positions  exactly 
determined  and  recorded  by  the  simple  arrangement  of  slid- 
ing rods  already  described.  The  experiments  took  place  at 
the  same  hour  daily,  for  a  period  extending  from  her  fourth 
to  her  tenth  month.  These  experiments  were  planned  with 
very  great  care  and  with  especial  view  to  the  testing  of  several 
hypotheses  which,  although  superficial  to  those  who  have 
studied  physiology,  yet  constantly  recur  in  publications  on 
this  subject.1  Among  these  theories  certain  may  be  men- 

1  Cf.  Vierordt's  remarks,  Physiologic  des  Kindesalters,  pp.  428,  429.     For 
a  detailed  statement  of  theories  on  this  topic,  see  Chap.  X.  of  the  very  learned 
56 


Experimental  5  7 

tioned  with  regard  to  which  my  experiments  were  con- 
clusive. It  has  frequently  been  held  that  a  child's  right- 
handedness  arises  from  the  nurse's  or  mother's  constant 
method  of  carrying  it ;  the  child's  hand  which  is  left  free 
being  more  exercised,  and  so  becoming  stronger.  This 
theory  is  ambiguous  as  regards  both  mother  and  child. 
The  mother,  if  right-handed,  would  carry  the  child  on  the 
left  arm,  in  order  to  work  with  the  right  arm.  This  I  find 
an  invariable  tendency  with  myself  and  with  nurses  and 
mothers  whom  I  have  observed.  But  this  would  leave  the 
child's  left  arm  free,  and  so  a  right-handed  mother  would 
be  found  with  a  left-handed  child.  Again,  if  the  mother 
or  nurse  be  left-handed,  the  child  would  tend  to  be  right- 
handed.  Or  if,  as  is  the  case  in  civilized  countries,  nurses 
largely  replace  the  mothers,  it  would  be  necessary  that 
most  of  the  nurses  be  left-handed  in  order  to  make  most  of 
the  children  right-handed.  Now  none  of  these  deductions 
are  true.  Further,  the  child,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  holds  on 
with  both  hands,  however  it  is  itself  held. 

Another  theory  maintains  that  the  development  of  right- 
handedness  is  due  to  differences  in  weight  of  the  two  lateral 
halves  of  the  body;  this  tends  to  bring  more  strain  on  one 
side  than  the  other,  and  so  to  give  more  exercise,  and  so  more 
development,  to  that  side.  This  evidently  assumes  that 
children  are  not  right-  or  left-handed  before  they  learn  to 
stand.  This  my  results  given  below  show  to  be  false.  Again, 
we  are  told  that  infants  get  right-handed  by  being  placed  on 
one  side  too  much  for  sleep ;  this  can  be  shown  to  have  little 
force  also,  when  the  precaution  is  taken  to  place  the  child 
alternately  on  its  right  and  left  sides  for  its  sleeping  periods. 

In  the  case  of  the  child  H.,  certain  precautions  were  care- 
monograph  on  The  Right  Hand :  Lejt-handedness,  by  my  late  lamented  col- 
league and  friend  Sir  Daniel  Wilson. 


The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 


fully  enforced.  She  was  carried  about  in  arms  very  little, 
never  walked  with  when  crying  or  sleepless  (a  ruinous  and 
needless  habit  to  cultivate  in  an  infant) ;  she  was  frequently 
turned  over  in  her  sleep ;  she  was  not  allowed  to  balance  her- 
self on  her  feet  until  a  later  period  than  that  covered  by  the 
experiments.  Thus  the  conditions  of  the  rise  of  the  right- 
handed  era  were  made  as  simple  and  uniform  as  possible. 

The  experiments  included,  besides  reaching  for  colours, 
a  great  many  of  reaching  for  other  objects,  at  longer  and 
shorter  distances,  and  in  unsymmetrical  directions.  The 
following  table  (III.)  gives  some  details  of  the  results  of  the 
experiments  in  which  simple  objects  were  used,  extending 
over  a  period  of  four  months,  from  the  fifth  to  the  ninth  in 
her  life.  The  number  of  experiments  at  each  sitting  varied 
from  ten  to  forty;  the  position  of  the  child  being  reversed, 
as  to  light  from  windows,  position  of  observation,  etc.,  after 
half  of  each  series. 

TABLE  HI 


DATE. 

No.  of 
Series. 

No.  of  Ex- 
periments. 

Right 
Hand. 

Left 
Hand. 

Both 
Hands. 

1890.  February  loth  to  March  I5th 

30 

744 

173 

1  66 

405 

March  I4th  to  April  I4th  .  . 

25 

623 

134 

141 

348 

April  1  4th  to  May  1  4th  .  .  . 

25 

S46 

213 

130 

203 

May  1  4th  to  June  igth 

16 

274 

57 

131 

86 

Total 

06 

2  l8? 

<;68 

1042 

It  is  evident  from  Table  III.  that  no  trace  of  preference 
for  either  hand  is  discernible  during  this  period;  indeed 
the  neutrality  is  as  complete  as  if  it  had  been  arranged 
beforehand,  or  had  followed  the  throwing  of  dice. 


Experimental 


59 


I  then  conceived  the  idea  that  possibly  a  severer  distance 
test  might  affect  the  result  and  show  a  marked  preferential 
response  by  one  hand  over  the  other.  I  accordingly  continued 
to  use  a  neutral  stimulus,  but  placed  it  from  12  to  15  inches 
away  from  the  child.  This  resulted  in  very  hard  straining 
on  her  part,  with  all  the  signs  of  physical  effort  (explosive 
breathing-sounds  resulting  from  the  setting  of  the  larynx, 
rush  of  blood  to  the  head,  seen  in  flushing  of  the  face,  etc., 
and  flow  of  urine).  Table  IV.  gives  the  results;  the  number 
in  each  series  was  intentionally  made  very  small,  from  one 
to  twelve,  in  order  to  avoid  fatigue:  — 

TABLE  IV 


DATE. 

No.  of 
Series. 

No.  of 
Trials. 

Right 
Hand. 

Left 
Hand. 

Both 
Hands. 

1890.  May  26th  to  June  loth 

32 

80 

74 

5 

I 

The  same  cases,  distributed  according  to  distance,   give 
us  Table  V.:  — 

TABLE  V 


12  Inches. 

13  Inches. 

14  Inches. 

iS  Inches. 

Right  hand  

29 

IO 

33 

2 

Left  hand  

e 

Both  hands  

A  comparison  of  Tables  IV.  and  V.  with  Table  III.  shows 
a  remarkable  difference.  During  the  month  ending  June 
1 5th,  the  child  showed  no  decided  preference  for  either  hand 
in  reaching  straight  before  her  within  the  easy  reaching 


6o 


The    Origin    of  Right-handedness 


distance  of  10  inches,  but  a  slight  balance  in  favour  of  the 
left  hand ;  yet  she  was  right-handed  to  a  marked  degree  during 
the  same  period  as  regards  movements  which  required  effort 
or  strain,  such  as  grasping  for  objects  12  to  15  inches  distant. 
For  the  greater  distances,  the  left  hand  was  used  in  only  five 
cases  as  against  seventy-four  cases  of  the  use  of  the  right 
hand;  and  further,  all  these  five  cases  were  twelve-inch 
distances,  the  left  hand  being  used  absolutely  not  at  all  in 
the  forty-five  cases  at  longer  distances. 

In  order  to  test  this  further,  I  varied  the  point  of  exposure 
of  the  stimulus  to  the  right  or  left,  aiming  thus  to  attract  the 
hand  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  so  to  determine  whether 
the  growth  of  such  a  preference  was  limited  to  experiences  of 
convenience  in  reaching  to  adjacent  local  objects,  etc.  The 
result  appears  in  Table  VI. :  — 

TABLE  VI 


June  loth  to  aoth. 

12  Inches. 

13  Inches. 

14  Inches. 

15  Inches. 

Hand  used. 

Deviations  from  me- 

Right. 

Left. 

dian  line  — 

2  to  6  inches  to 

left.     .     .     . 

10  cases 

15  cases 

4  cases 

—   ^ 

2  to  6  inches  to 

I 

35 

— 

right    .     .     . 

2      " 

3    " 

I      st 

—    J 

Same  conditions  with 

colour  stimulus     . 

— 

15 

2 

This  table  shows  that  deviation  to  the  left  in  front  of  the 
body  only  called  out  the  right  hand  to  greater  exertion,  while 
the  left  hand  fell  into  still  greater  disuse.  This  seems  to 
show  that  dextrality  is  not  derived  from  the  experience  of  the 
individual  in  using  either  hand  predominantly  for  reaching, 
grasping,  holding,  etc.,  within  the  easiest  range  of  that  hand. 


Experimental  61 

The   right   hand    intruded   regularly   upon   the    domain  of 
the  left. 

Proceeding  upon  the  clue  thus  obtained,  a  clue  which 
seems  to  suggest  that  the  hand  preference  is  influenced  by 
the  eye  stimulus,  I  introduced  hand  observations  into  a 
series  of  experiments  which  I  was  making  at  that  time  on 
the  same  child's  perception  of  the  different  colours ;  thinking 
that  the  colour  stimulus  which  represented  the  strongest 
inducement  to  the  child  to  reach,  might  have  the  same  effect 
in  determining  the  use  of  the  right  hand  as  the  increased 
distance  in  the  experiments  already  described.  This  in- 
ference is  proved  to  be  correct  by  the  results  given  in  Table 
VII.:  — 

TABLE  VII 

Colour  stimulus,    f  Hand Right.  Left.  Both.  \  May  23d  to 

10  to  15  inches  \  Number  of  cases  .86         2         —      J    June  igth. 

It  should  be  added  that  in  all  cases  in  which  both  hands 
are  said  to  have  been  used,  each  hand  was  called  out  with 
evident  independence  of  the  other,  both  about  the  same 
time,  and  both  carried  energetically  to  the  goal.  In  many 
other  cases  in  which  either  right  or  left  hand  is  given  in 
the  tables,  the  other  hand  also  moved,  but  in  a  subordinate 
and  aimless  way.  There  was  a  very  marked  difference 
between  the  use  of  both  hands  in  some  cases,  and  of  one 
hand  followed  by,  or  accompanied  by,  the  other  in  other 
cases.  It  was  very  rare  that  the  second  hand  did  not  thus 
follow  or  accompany  the  first ;  and  this  was  extremely  marked 
in  the  violent  reaching  for  which  the  right  hand  was  mainly 
used.  This  movement  was  almost  invariably  accompanied 
by  an  objectless  and  fruitless  symmetrical  movement  of  the 
other. 

The  results  of  the  entire  series  of  experiments  on  the 


62  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

use  of  the  hands  may  be  stated  as  follows,  mainly  in  the 
words  in  which  I  reported  them  summarily  some  time  ago.1 

1.  I  found  no  continued  preference  for  either  hand  as 
long  as  there   were   no    violent   muscular   exertions   made 
(based   on   2187   systematic   experiments   in   cases   oi   free 
movement  of  hands  near  the  body:  i.e.  right  hand,  577  cases; 
left  hand,  568  cases,  —  a  difference  of  9  cases ;   both  hands, 
1042  cases ;  the  difference  of  9  cases  being  too  slight  to  have 
any  meaning),  the  period  covered    being  from  the  child's 
sixth  to  her  tenth  month  inclusive. 

2.  Under  the  same  conditions,  the  tendency  to  use  both 
hands  together  was  about  double  the  tendency  to  use  either 
(seen  from  the  number  of  cases  of  the  use  of  both  hands  in 
the  statistics  given  above). 

3.  A  distinct  preference  for  the  right  hand  in  violent  efforts 
in  reaching   became  noticeable  in  the  seventh   and   eighth 
months.     Experiments  during  the  eighth  month  on  this  cue 
gave,  in  80  cases :   right  hand,  74  cases ;   left  hand,  5  cases ; 
both  hands,  i  case.     This  was  true  in  two  very  distinct  classes 
of   cases:     first,    reaching  for  objects,   neutral   as   regards 
colour  (newspaper,  etc.),  at  more  than  the  reaching  distance; 
and,  second,  reaching  for  bright  colours  at  any  distance. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  bright  colours,  from  86    cases,  84 
were  right-hand  cases  and  2  left-hand.     Right-handedness 
had  accordingly  developed  under  pressure  of  muscular  effort 

1  Science,  XVI.,  Oct.  31,  1890;  discussed  by  James,  Science,  Nov.  8,  1890, 
by  Dr.  J.  T.  O'Connor,  Ibid.,  XVI.,  1890,  p.  331,  and  by  myself,  Ibid.,  XVI., 
Nov.  28,  1890.  The  results  are  quoted  in  full  in  Nature,  Nov.  13,  1890,  and 
in  part  in  the  Illustrated  London  News,  Jan.  17,  1891.  See  discussions  of 
them  also  in  Zeitsch.  fur  Psychologic,  II.,  1891,  p.  239;  Wilson,  The  Right 
Hand:  Left-handedness,  pp.  128-131;  Revue  Scientifique,  1891,  II.,  p.  493; 
Mazel,  Revue  Scientifique,  1892,  I.,  p.  113.  Both  writers  in  the  last-named 
journal  cite  these  experiments  wrongly  as  Wilson's.  For  later  discussions 
of  these  and  the  colour  experiments,  see  the  child-study  literature  generally. 


Theoretical  63 

in  the  sixth  and  seventh  months,  and  showed  itself  also  under 
the  influence  of  a  strong  colour  stimulus  to  the  eye. 

4.  Up  to  this  time  the  child  had  not  learned  to  stand  or 
to  creep;    hence  the  development  of  one  hand  more  than 
the  other  is  not  due  to  differences  in  weight  between  the  two 
longitudinal  halves  of  the  body.     As  she  had  not  learned  to 
speak  or  to  utter  articulate  sounds  with  much  distinctness, 
we  may  say  also  that  right-  or  left-handedness  may  develop 
while  the  motor  speech  centre  is  not  yet  functioning.     Further, 
the  use  of  the  right  hand  is  carried  over  to  the  left  side,  show- 
ing that  habit  in  reaching  does  not  determine  its  use. 

5.  In  most  cases  involving  the  marked  use  of  one  hand 
in  preference  to  the  other,  the  second  or  backward  hand 
followed  slowly  upon  the  lead  of  the  first,  in  a  way  clearly 
showing  symmetrical  innervation  of  accompanying  move- 
ments by  the  second  hand.     This  confirms  the  inference  as 
to  such  movements  drawn  from  the  phenomena  of  mirror- 
writing,  etc.,  by  Fechner  and  E.  H.  Weber.1 

§  2.    Theoretical 

I.  Some  interesting  points  arise  in  connection  with  the 
interpretation  of  these  facts.  If  it  be  true  that  the  order  of 
rise  of  mental  and  physiological  functions  is  constant,  then 
for  this  question  the  results  obtained  in  the  case  of  one  child, 
if  accurate,  would  hold  for  others  apart  from  any  absolute 
time  determination.  We  would  expect,  therefore,  that  these 
results  would  be  confirmed  by  experiments  on  other  children, 
and  this  is  the  only  way  their  correctness  can  be  tested.2 

1  I  do  not  find,  therefore,  that  these  experiments  warrant  the  negative  in- 
ference on  this  question  which  Munsterberg  has  drawn  from  them :  Beitrage 
zur  Exp.  Psych.,  Heft  IV.,  p.  197. 

J  Vierordt  says  concerning  such  experiments :  "  Adequate  observations 
are  wanting  on  the  grasping  movements  of  the  infant's  left  and  right  arm  -^-  a 


64  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

If,  when  tested,  they  should  be  found  correct,  they  would 
be  sufficient  answer  to  several  of  the  theories  of  right-handed- 
ness heretofore  urged.  The  phenomenon  cannot  be  due,  as  I 
have  said,  to  differences  in  balance  of  the  two  sides  of  the 
body,  for  it  arises  before  the  body  begins  to  stand  erect.  It 
cannot  be  due  to  experience  in  the  use  of  either  hand,  since 
it  arises  when  there  is  no  such  difference  of  experience,  and 
since  the  hand  preferred  is  used,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  for  pur- 
poses for  which  in  experience  the  other  would  be  altogether 
more  convenient.1  The  rise  of  the  phenomenon  must  be 
sought,  therefore,  in  more  deep-going  facts  of  physiology 
than  such  theories  supply. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  heredity  be  brought  to  the  aid  of 
these  'experience'  theories,  it  is  possible  to  claim  that,  as 
structure  follows  function,  experience  of  function  must 
have  been  first  in  race  history;  and  only  then  would  the 
modification  in  structure  which  is  now  sufficient  to  produce 
right-handedness  in  individual  cases  have  been  brought  about. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  go  lower  in  the  animal  scale  than 
man,  analogies  for  the  kinds  of  experience  which  are  urged  as 
reasons  for  right-handedness  are  not  present ;  animals  do  not 
carry  their  young,  nor  pat  them  to  sleep,  nor  do  animals 
shake  hands !  It  must  therefore  be  shown  that  animals  are 
right-  or  left-handed,  or  that  they  differ  in  some  marked 
respect  in  regard  to  function,  in  their  nervous  make-up,  from 
man.  Admitting  the  need  of  meeting  these  requirements; 

kind  of  observation  which  would  be  of  the  first  importance  for  this  inquiry," 
Physiologic  des  Kindesalters,  p.  428 ;  and  Wilson :  "  Only  a  prolonged  series 
of  observations,  such  as  those  by  Professor  Baldwin  already  noted,  made  at 
the  first  stage  of  life,  and  based  on  the  voluntary  and  the  unprompted  actions 
of  the  child,  can  supply  the  needful  data,"  Lejt-handedness,  p.  209. 

1  An  additional  point,  which  I  think  is  true,  is  that  a  right-handed  child 
learns  to  shake  hands  properly  —  using  the  more  inconvenient  hand  across 
his  body  —  more  easily  than  the  left-handed  child. 


Theoretical  65 

admitting  again  that  we  have  little  evidence  that  animals  are 
dextral  in  their  functions;  admitting  also  the  known  results 
as  to  the  control  of  the  two  halves  of  the  muscular  system 
by  the  opposite  brain  hemispheres  respectively;  admitting 
further  that  the  motor  speech  function  is  performed  by  the 
hemisphere  which  controls  the  stronger  side  of  the  body,  and 
is  adjacent  to  the  motor  arm  centre  in  that  hemisphere ;  and 
admitting,  finally,  that  the  speech  function  is  one  in  which 
the  animals  have  little  share,  —  all  these  admissions  lead  us 
at  once  to  the  view  that  there  is  a  fundamental  connection 
between  the  rise  of  speech  and  the  rise  of  right-handedness.1 
Looking  broadly  at  the  methods  of  nervous  and  muscular 
development,  and  accepting  all  the  results  of  neurology  we 
are  able  to  gather,  we  may  say  that  in  the  differentiation  of 
functions  in  the  ,animal  series  certain  principles  may  be 
recognized:  i.  The  deep-seated  vital  functions  represent 
least  nervous  differentiation,  as  is  seen  in  the  simple  organs 
known  as  the  lower  nervous  centres.  2.  New  symmetrical 

1  This  much  has  been  before  surmised  by  Mazel,  Revue  Scientifique,  1892, 
I.,  p.  113.  He  makes  no  attempt,  however,  to  account  for  the  association, 
except  by  calling  both  functions  expressive.  Mr.  F.  H.  Gushing  has  sent  me 
a  paper  on  'Manual  Concepts'  (American  Anthropologist,  V.,  1892,  p.  289) 
in  which  he  gives  interesting  evidence  from  philology  and  race  customs  among 
various  peoples  of  the  direct  influence  of  hand  movements  upon  spoken  and 
written  language.  He  finds  evidence  that  the  Zuni  and  Roman  numeral 
sounds  are  derived  from  hand  words,  and  their  numeral  graphic  signs  are 
transcribed  hand  positions.  It  would  be  interesting  also  to  inquire  how  far 
the  right  hand  is  predominant  in  gesture  and  sign  languages,  which  precede 
articulate  speech.  Gushing  points  out  that  the  left  hand  is  usually  a  passive 
instrument  which  is  manipulated  actively  by  the  right.  The  best  report  on 
sign-language  is  that  of  Mallery  in  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  I.,  1881, 
and  the  best  discussion  of  the  phenomenon  is  by  Romanes,  Ment.  Evolution 
in  Man,  pp.  104  ff.  I  have  asked  Mr.  Lester  Jones,  Fellow  of  Princeton  Col- 
lege, to  examine  Col.  Mallery's  detailed  reports  of  the  actual  signs  employed 
in  the  sign-languages  of  the  North  American  Indians,  tabulating  the  cases  in 
which  either  hand  is  used  alone  or  predominantly.  I  give  Mr.  Jones'  results 
in  Appendix  B,  with  some  remarks  upon  their  value  for  our  present  inquiry. 

F 


66  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

functions  give  a  differential  or  twofold  organic  development, 
the  great  instance  of  which  is  found  in  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres. 3.  New  asymmetrical  or  unilateral  functions  find 
their  counterpart  each  in  one  of  three  kinds  of  nervous 
adaptation :  (a)  co-ordination  of  the  hemispheres  in  a  single 
function  —  i.e.  functions  which  are  crippled  if  either  hemi- 
sphere is  damaged;  (£>)  co-ordination  of  particular  functions 
in  each  hemisphere  —  i.e.  functions  which  are  not  crippled 
unless  both  hemispheres  are  damaged ;  and  (c)  co-ordination 
of  particular  functions  in  one  hemisphere  only  —  i.e.  func- 
tions which  are  crippled  only  if  one  selected  hemisphere  is 
damaged.  All  these  kinds  of  co-ordination  exist. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  both  speech  and  right-handed  func- 
tion belong  under  the  last  head  of  the  last  class  —  co-ordi- 
nations of  particular  functions  in  one  hemisphere  only  — 
and  that  they  belong  in  the  same  hemisphere.  Why  is  this? 
What  have  they  in  common  ? 

A  very  essential  kind  of  hand  movements  are  the  so-called 
'expressive'  movements,  meaning  those  which  serve  to  con- 
vey a  meaning,  or  express  a  state  of  consciousness.  Of 
course,  speech  is  par  excellence  the  function  of  expression. 
It  is  further  only  a  part  of  the  position  upon  which  the  psy- 
chological theory  of  expression  is  based,  that  all  movements 
are  in  a  sense  expressive,  and  that  details  of  expression  and 
its  relative  fulness  are  matters  of  co-ordination.  Now,  this 
co-ordination  has  attained  its  ripest  and  most  complex  form, 
apart  from  speech,1  in  movements  of  the  hand.  Upon  this 
view  it  is  easy  to  hold  that  right-handedness  is  a  form  of 
expressive  differentiation  of  movement,  and  that  it  preceded 
speech,  which  is  a  further  and  more  complex  form  of  differ- 
entiation serving  the  same  utility. 

The  neurological  basis  upon  which  this  hypothesis  rests  is 

1  See  physiological  evidence,  below,  pp.  400  ff. 


Theoretical  67 

adequate,  and  affords  a  presumption  as  to  the  psychological 
development  as  well.  The  facts  which  are  given  in  these 
pages  go  some  way  to  support  the  view:  i.  Right-handed- 
ness arose  before  speech  in  the  child  H.  2.  Imitation  by  the 
hand  of  movements  seen  arises  before  articulate  imitations  of 
sounds  heard ; *  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  hearing,  in  its 
development  in  the  child,  becomes  perfect  before  sight. 
3.  Characteristic  differences  in  children  in  respect  to  their 
general  mobility  of  arm  and  hand,  manual  skill,  and  quick- 
ness of  manipulation,  extend  also  to  speech.  As  compared 
with  my  other  child,  E.,  the  first-born,  H.,  is  remarkably 
agile  and  motile  generally  in  her  temperament;  and  her 
speech  development  was  relatively  much  earlier  and  more 
rapid. 

It  is  interesting  also  to  note  that  musical  ability  is  asso- 
ciated with  speech  ability  —  a  connection  which  would  be 
expected  when  one  takes  due  account  of  the  expressive  char- 
acter and  function  of  music.  As  far  as  theories  of  the  rise 
of  musical  expression  have  gone,  they  unite  in  finding  its 
beginnings  in  the  rudimentary  emotional  expressions  of  the 
animals.  The  singing  of  birds  is  undoubtedly  connected 
with  their  mating  instincts.  Pathological  cases  also  show  a 
marked  connection  between  musical  execution  and  speech, 
to  the  extent  that,  while  musical  defect  almost  invariably 
involves  speech  defects,  the  reverse  is  much  less  generally 
true  —  a  fact  which  confirms  the  view  that  music  is  an 
earlier  form,  but  still  a  form,  of  expressive  reaction. 

Late  observations  also  show,  as  far  as  they  are  sufficient, 
that  the  centre  for  music  expression  is  also  located  normally 
in  the  left  hemisphere  for  right-handed  persons.  Oppenheim 

1  See  Chap.  VI.,  §  4.  It  is  interesting  that  of  both  hand  and  speech 
movements  the  latest  to  be  lost  in  disease  are  those  involved  in  the  so-called 
'mimicry'  of  movement  and  in  imitative  speech. 


68  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

reports  a  case  1  of  total  aphasia  with  total  amusia  (lack  of 
musical  ability  from  disease)  in  which  the  recovery  of  speech 
brought  with  it  musical  recovery  also.  Furthermore,  an- 
other case  of  Oppenheim's  shows  motor  aphasia  with  motor 
amusia  only  —  i.e.  the  patient  could  still  understand  tunes, 
and,  further,  could  imagine  tunes  'in  his  head/2  while  he 
could  not  sing  them.  This  shows  a  close  connection  in 
locality  between  motor  speech  and  motor  music  function, 
while  a  slight  separateness  of  the  two  centres  in  locality  in 
the  left  hemisphere  explains  cases  of  motor  aphasia  in  which 
execution  is  preserved.  Further,  Frankl-Hochwart  declares 
that  no  cases  are  recorded  of  amusia  from  lesion  in  the  right 
hemisphere,3  and  Starr  says  of  a  patient  of  his:4  "My 
patient  is  right-handed,  and  music  does  follow  speech  in 
being  unilaterally  located;  ...  it  is  well  proved  that  the 
musical  faculty  is  one-sided  in  location."  Despite  these  posi- 
tive opinions,  however,  I  think  more  critical  cases  with 
autopsy  are  necessary  to  make  the  position  quite  secure. 

The  service  which  speech  owes  to  gesture  is  emphasized 
by  Romanes  in  the  following  words:  "Although  gesture 
language  is  not  in  my  opinion  so  efficient  a  means  of  develop- 
ing abstract  ideation  as  is  spoken  language,  it  must  neverthe- 
less have  been  of  much  service  in  assisting  the  growth  of  the 
latter,  and  ...  in  laying  the  foundation  of  the  whole  mental 
fabric  which  has  been  constructed  by  the  faculty  of  speech. 
Whether  we  look  to  children,  to  savages,  or,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  to  idiots,  we  find  that  gesture  plays  an  important 

1  Charite  Annalen,  XIII.,  1888,  p.  286. 

2  Cf .  Chap.  XIV.,  below,  for  further  exposition  of  the  mechanism  of  speech 
and  the  music  function. 

3  This  means  that  all  cases  noted  have  been  right-handed.     Deutsche 
Zeitsch.  jilr  Nervenheilkunde,  1891,  I.,  p.  295,  and  foot-note. 

4  In  a  private  letter.     The  case  is  referred  to  by  Starr  in  The  Psychological 
Review,  January,  1894,  p.  92. 


Theoretical  69 

part  in  assisting  speech ;  and  in  all  cases  where  a  vocabulary 
is  scanty  or  imperfect,  gesture  is  sure  to  be  employed  as  the 
natural  means  of  supplementing  speech.  .  .  .  Therefore  it 
is,  in  my  opinion,  perfectly  certain  that  its  origin  and  develop- 
ment must  have  been  assisted  by  gesture.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  reciprocal  influence  must  have  been  great  in 
both  directions,  and  that  it  must  have  proceeded  from  ges- 
ture to  speech  in  the  first  instance,  and  afterwards  from  speech 
to  gesture." 

All  this  means  simply  that  the  general  cause  to  which  is 
due  the  fact  of  right-handedness  is  also  the  cause,  through 
further  differentiation  and  emphasis  in  the  same  local  seat, 
of  the  development  of  speech  and  of  musical  ability.  It  now 
remains  to  ask :  What  was  or  is  this  cause,  and  when  in  the 
race  history  series  did  it  begin  to  operate  ?  There  are  only 
two  hypotheses  of  any  force  —  either  that  of  '  experience,'  or 
that  of  'spontaneous  variation'  at  some  stage  in  biological 
development. 

It  is  extremely  improbable  that  dextrality  should  have 
arisen  among  the  quadrupeds,  or  amanous  bipeds,  for  ex- 
perience was  lacking  of  unilateral  stimulation,  and  a  spon- 
taneous variation  of  this  kind  would  have  produced  such 
inconvenience  of  locomotion  and  ultimately  such  asymmetry 
of  form  that  it  would  have  been  weeded  out.1  As  an  extreme 
example,  fancy  a  bird  become  dextral  in  its  flight.2 

As  soon  as  we  come  to  bipeds  with  hands,  however,  these 
reasons  do  not  hold.  Their  locomotion  does  not  depend  on 
manual  symmetry,  and  any  dextrality,  however  slight,  would 
be  of  direct  advantage  in  climbing,  fighting,  breaking  sticks, 

1  For  this  reason  the  human  leg,  as  Brown-Sequard  says,  is  not  as  one- 
sided as  the  arm.  Any  great  unevenness  would  produce  lameness  and 
relative  incapacity. 

3  The  only  evidence  I  know  of  such  a  thing  is  that  a  cat  swims  in  a  circle ; 
but  then  dogs  and  horses  do  not,  and  these  do  not  drown,  while  the  cat  does. 


70  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

and  pulling  fruit;  since  a  disproportionate  growth  of  one 
side  would  give  that  side  greater  strength  than  either  side 
would  possess  in  animals  of  symmetrical  development  in  the 
same  environment.  A  very  strong  one-armed  man  can  keep 
at  bay  a  weaker  man  with  two  arms,  or  destroy  him;  and 
this  is  emphasized  in  animals,  where  brute  force  is  the  only 
resource.  It  is  difficult  to  find,  however,  in  the  habits  of 
simians  any  ground  for  believing  that  there  has  been  a  form 
of  unilateral  stimulation  which  would  act  to  effect  a  structural 
change  in  one  hemisphere  over  and  above  the  other.  This, 
rather  than  the  anatomical  causes  suggested  by  Romanes, 
may  be  one  of  the  reasons  the  monkeys  have  not  developed 
speech.  Their  conditions  of  life  stimulation  are  such  that 
there  has  been  no  chance  for  the  development  of  the  centre 
for  'expression'  in  the  left  temporal  brain-lobe.  They  have 
been  compelled  to  maintain  bilateral  balance  of  function. 

But,  apart  from  this,  there  is  every  reason  to  expect,  quite 
independently  of  function,  that  two  organs  of  such  compara- 
tive separateness  and  independence  of  function  as  the  two 
hemispheres  would  not  remain  exactly  balanced  in  function ; 
in  short,  spontaneous  variations  giving  advantageous  dex- 
trality  would  inevitably  arise  and  persist  as  soon  as  the  habits 
of  life  were  not  such  that  more  important  functions,  such  as 
locomotion,  tended  to  suppress  them  and  restore  bilateral 
equilibrium.1  There  are,  as  far  as  I  know,  very  few  pub- 
lished observations  of  fact  in  regard  to  simian  or  animal 
dextrality.2 

1  It  is  on  this  point  that  I  differ  from  Wilson,  who  claims  that,  while  some 
are  naturally  right-  or  left-handed,  most  people  owe  the  peculiarity  to  educa- 
tion;  the  evidence  against  Wilson's  view,  apart  from  my  present  results,  is 
well  put  by  Mazel,  loc.  cit. 

2  I  know  only  the  assertion  of  Vierordt  that  parrots  grasp  and  hold  food 
with  the  left  claw,  that  lions  strike  with  the  left  paw,  and  his  quotation  from 
Livingstone — 'All  animals  are  left-handed'   (Vierordt,  loc.  cit.,  p.  428). 


Theoretical  7 1 

It  is  likely,  therefore,  that  right-handedness  in  the  child  is 
due  to  differences  in  the  two  half-brains,  being  always  asso- 
ciated with  speech,  that  the  promise  of  it  is  inherited,  and 
that  the  influences  of  infancy  have  little  effect  upon  it.  Yet,  of 
course,  regular  habits  of  disuse  or  of  the  cultivation  of  the 
other  hand  may,  as  the  child  grows  up,  diminish  or  destroy 
the  disparity  between  the  two.  And  this  inherited  brain- 
onesidedness  also  accounts  for  the  association  of  right- 
handedness,  speech,  and  music  faculty,  the  speech  function 
being  a  further  development  of  the  same  unilateral  power  of 
movement  found  first  in  right-  or  left-handedness. 

II.  A  further  point  of  psychological  interpretation  is  of 
some  interest.  How  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact  that  a 
bright  colour  stimulus  exposed  at  a  lesser  distance  brought 

Dr.  W.  Ogle  reports  observations  on  parrots  and  monkeys  in  Trans.  Royal 
Med.  and  Chirur.  Society,  1871.  Dr.  Ogle  informs  me  in  a  private  letter  that 
the  chimpanzee  which  recently  died  in  the  Zoological  Garden  in  London  was 
discovered  by  him  to  be  left-handed.  I  have  addressed  a  circular  letter  to 
some  of  the  officials  in  zoological  institutions  here  and  abroad,  and  hope  to 
gather  some  facts  in  this  way.  If  it  should  prove  true  that  the  lower  animals 
are  left-sided,  then  the  current  view  that  right-handed  children  have  a  pre- 
liminary period  of  left-handedness  —  a  view  to  which  my  Table  III.,  above, 
gives  some  support  —  might  have  its  explanation  in  the  hypothesis  of  the  repe- 
tition of  phylogenetic  development  in  the  individual  child.  My  own  expe- 
rience with  parrots  now  ( 1906)  confirms  Vierordt.  My  birds  stand  on  the 
right  and  hold  the  food  with  the  left  claw. 

It  is  evident  that  on  this  theory  of  spontaneous  variation  any  change 
which  produced  a  permanent  organic  superiority  of  one  hemisphere  would 
be  sufficient,  and  the  view  that  the  difference  in  the  hemispheres  is  due  to 
a  better  blood  supply  to  the  left  hemisphere  might  thus  have  its  justification. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  arterial  arrangements  do  seem  to  indicate  a  more 
direct  blood  supply  to  the  left  hemisphere  (cf.  the  note  of  Dr.  J.  T.  O'Connor, 
apropos  of  my  experiments,  in  Science,  XVI.,  1890,  p.  331).  It  is  an  interest- 
ing inquiry  whether  this  arterial  arrangement  is  reversed  in  left-handed  per- 
sons. Wilson  cites  two  cases  in  which  there  was  no  such  correspondence 
(loc.  tit.,  p.  179). 


72  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

out  the  right  hand,  while  a  neutral  stimulus  required  a 
greater  distance? 

The  general  fact  may  be  expressed  in  the  symbols  of  the 
formula  which  I  have  proposed  for  the  so-called  dynamogenic 
method  of  experimentation.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in 
the  formula l 


D  represented  the  drawing-out  tendency,  the  amount  of 
dynamogeny  exercised  by  a  given  stimulus;  q  the  quality 
of  this  stimulus  (colour,  etc);  and  d  the  distance.  If  the 
tendency  to  use  one  particular  hand  in  preference  to  the 
other  hand  be  designated  by  r,  we  now  find  from  the  experi- 
ments that 

T=K  •  d,  (i) 

but,  by  the  general  law  that  distance  decreases  influence, 


consequently,  T=K  •  —  .  (3) 

Again,  we  find  from  the  experiments  that 

(4) 


(colour) 


but  D  =  K  •  q;  (5) 

consequently,  r=x  •  j-, 

the  same  result  as  (3). 

So  it  seems  from  both  results  of  the  experiments  that 

1  Above,  Chap.  II.,  §  3. 


Theoretical  73 

right-handedness  varies  inversely  as  the  dynamogenic  influ- 
ence 0}  the  stimulus,  whether  that  dynamogenic  influence  be 
colour  or  distance. 

The  question  of  interpretation,  then,  is  this :  How  does  it 
come  that  increasing  distance,  which  would  be  supposed  to 
lessen  the  calling-out  force  of  a  stimulus  by  lessening  its 
intensity,  clearness,  etc.,  yet  tends  to  do  exactly  what  a  bright 
colour  at  a  lesser  distance  does,  i.e.  to  call  out  increased 
dynamogeny,  with  the  use  of  the  right  hand  ? 

Of  course  the  explanation  is  evident  enough.  The  child 
has  learned  by  experience  (or  has  inherited  the  organic  con- 
ditions) that  more  effort,  higher  D,  is  necessary  in  the  case 
of  a  more  distant  stimulus ;  and  so  a  central  supply  goes  out 
to  reinforce  the  influence  D  of  this  distant  stimulus,  and  the 
right-handedness  is  the  evidence  of  this  reinforced  D.  We 
would  expect,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  colour,  being  itself 
a  more  dynamogenic  stimulus,  would  have  the  same  effect, 
without  the  central  reinforcement,  and  also  bring  out  the 
right  hand.1  And  so  it  does. 

A  farther  point  of  interest  is  seen  in  the  inhibition  of  the 
movement  altogether  when  the  distance  is  slightly  increased, 
i.e.  to  fifteen  inches  or  over,  as  given  in  the  tables.  It  shows 
that  even  at  the  age  of  this  child  very  accurate  visual  estima- 
tion of  distance  has  already  been  acquired,  as  I  had  occasion 
to  say  in  the  last  chapter.  The  child's  interpretation  of  the 
distance  inhibits  all  effort  to  reach  across  it.  The  interpre- 

1  On  this  point,  Professor  William  James  writes  (Science,  Nov.  14,  1890, 
p.  295),  apropos  of  my  experiments  when  first  announced:  "These  observa- 
tions seem  very  interesting,  as  showing  how  strong  (attractive)  stimuli  may 
produce  more  definitely  localized  reactions  than  weaker  ones.  The  baby 
grasped  at  bright  colours  with  the  right  hand  almost  exclusively."  I  find 
this  but  natural,  not  because  the  reaction  is  'more  definitely  localized,'  but 
because  that  is  an  incident  to  a  larger  and  more  massive  discharge  through 
the  particular  channel  which  is  ready  for  it. 


74  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

tations  undoubtedly  result,  in  the  case  of  the  child,  in  my 
opinion,  from  associations  of  visual  indications  of  distance 
with  sensations  of  hand  and  arm  movement.  And  I  find 
that  this  association  gives  rise  to  three  determinations  —  all 
matters  of  experience  and  all  becoming  remarkably  refined 
—  (i)  the  safe-reaching  distance  (use  of  either  hand  or  both) ; 

(2)  the  uncertain-reaching  distance  (use  of  right  hand) ;  and 

(3)  the  impossible-to-reach  distance  (no  hand  movement,  but 
a  turning  away  of  face  and  body). 

The  process  of  learning  this  lesson  in  distance,  and  with 
it  the  waxing  ability  of  the  stronger  hand,  is  so  graphically 
described  by  James  in  a  private  letter  that  I  quote  it,  with 
his  permission:  "Admitting  the  experience  hypothesis 
(which  I  adopt  from  you  now,1  since  I  have  made  no  obser- 
vations, and  your  sense  of  what  is  likely  in  this  regard  seems 

1  In  view  of  my  letter  in  Science,  Nov.  28,  1890,  p.  302.  He  adds,  how- 
ever, after  the  above  quotation :  "  Although  I  have  made  every  possible  con- 
cession to  the  experience  theory,  as  adopted  by  you,  I  must  say  that  the  notion 
of  a  specialized  native  impulsiveness  for  the  right  hand  when  certain  distances 
appeal  to  the  eye  lingers  in  my  mind  as  that  of  a  natural  possibility."  This 
is  refuted,  I  think,  if  it  be  a  fact  that  infants  '  grasp  at  the  moon '  with  either 
hand  indiscriminately,  the  'moon'  standing  for  any  object  at  any  distance. 
The  possibility  of  such  native  adaptations  cannot  be  doubted,  for  some 
young  animals  seem  to  have  different  native  responses  adjusted  to  different 
distances;  but  in  the  case  of  the  child,  experience  seems  to  be  waited  for  to 
develop  many  things  which  are  really  native. 

I  endeavoured  to  test  H.'s  native  sense  of  locality  on  the  body,  apart 
from  the  association  with  sight,  by  dangling  my  watch-chain  gently  from  day 
to  day  on  the  top  of  her  head,  and  by  gently  pinching  one  or  other  of  her 
ears  occasionally,  watching  the  movements  of  her  hands  in  their  search  for 
the  chain  and  the  ear.  Up  to  about  the  middle  of  her  third  month  the  hand 
movements  seemed  perfectly  random,  'up'  and  'back'  being  about  the  only 
tendencies  which  indicated  any  sense  of  locality  whatever.  In  the  third 
month,  however,  she  seemed  to  begin  to  learn  where  to  find  the  objects, 
especially  the  ear;  but  the  success  was  apparently  due  to  the  experience. 
Cf.  Lloyd  Morgan's  instances  of  'probably  instinctive'  actions,  in  Habit 
and  Instinct,  Chaps.  II.,  IV.,  where  he  cites  these  results. 


Theoretical  75 

to  me  to  have  great  weight),  the  way  I  represent  the  matter 
to  myself  is  thus :  The  child  originally  responds  to  all  optical 
excitements  which  strike  his  attention  by  bounding  up  and 
down,  and  moving  both  arms.  Ere  long  the  movement  be- 
comes one  of  grasping  with  both.  Some  graspings  prove  easy, 
and  the  original  bilateral  medianism  continues  for  a  while 
associated  with  these.  Others  are  protracted ;  and  the 
superior  native  efficiency  of  the  right  hand,  in  reaching  the 
goal,  here  acts  so  as  to  inhibit  the  left  hand  altogether  when 
the  stimulus  suggests  a  case  of  this  kind.  Others,  again, 
never  succeed,  the  object  being  beyond  range  altogether; 
and  all  movements  are  inhibited  for  these  at  last." 

Now,  the  point  to  be  observed  is  this,  that  the  dynamogenic 
effect  of  distance  (d  in  the  formula)  is  not  natively  provided 
for,  as  is  that  of  quality  (q,  colour  in  this  case):  it  is  an 
acquired  effect,  called  out  through  experiences  of  relative  dis- 
tance. Relative  distances  are  'interpreted'  in  terms  of  past 
experience,  and  this  gives  them  their  present  force.  The 
course  of  the  nervous  disturbance  is  through  the  higher  cir- 
cuit which  association  involves,  and  which  on  the  motor  side 
implicates  attention ;  while  the  dynamogenic  effect  of  colour 
or  of  sensation  qualities  generally,  which  prompt  native  re- 
actions, is  by  a  lower  reflex  circuit.  One  is  an  ideo-motor 
reaction,  based  on  association ;  the  other  is  a  native  sensori- 
motor  reaction. 

It  is  necessary,  therefore,  again  to  alter  profoundly  our 
conception  of  the  simplest  dynamogenic  formula  in  view  of 
the  element  of  association  in  the  simplest  reaction  involving 
distance.  And  it  is  easy  to  see  what  becomes  of  the  formula 
as  soon  as  association  gets  to  be  a  little  complex ;  for  d,  we 
must  substitute  a  symbol  to  stand  for  the  central  influence 
as  a  whole,  say  <£ ;  and  of  course  with  increasing  complexity 
of  experience  the  meaning  of  <j>  becomes  more  and  more 


76  The    Origin   of  Right-handedness 

recondite.     With  adults,  therefore,  such  a  formula  would  be 
in  most  cases  nothing  more  than  tautology.1     With  infants  it 

1  The  only  way  to  experiment  on  volition,  accordingly,  is  by  using  com- 
parative stimulations  of  no  meaning  or  association,  or  by  keeping  the  associa- 
tion element  constant,  by  using  the  same  stimulation  repeatedly.  I  have 
endeavoured  to  experiment  on  volition  by  observing  the  effect  on  action  of  the 
same  stimulation  apprehended  through  different  senses,  i.e.  the  tendency  to 
draw  a  figure  seen  in  one  case  and  traced,  by  the  hand  in  the  other  (Proc.  Cong. 
Exper.  Psych.,  London,  1892,  p.  51) ;  see  below,  Chap.  XIII.,  §  3. 

A  further  point  deserves  a  word.  In  the  original  announcement  of  these 
experiments  I  found  it  necessary  to  think  that  the  child's  reaching  with  the 
right  hand  only  in  cases  involving  long  distances  and  effort  could  not  be  ex- 
plained without  supposing  that  her  sense  of  motor  discharge  in  the  case  of 
effort  was  something  different  from  that  in  case  of  movements  without  effort, 
i.e.  that  there  was  a  central  sense  of  motor  potential  of  some  kind.  Profes- 
sor James  in  Science  and  in  private  letters,  and  Professor  Dewey  later  in  a 
private  letter,  suggest  that  the  child  might  be  guided  by  its  sense  of  greater 
success,  skill,  ease,  etc.,  in  the  case  of  earlier  right-hand  movements  —  all 
peripheral,  not  central,  elements.  I  am  not  strenuous  for  my  interpretation ; 
indeed  the  other  seems  to  me  now  more  natural  and  simple.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  more  experiments  will  be  forthcoming ;  but  with  my  experience  with  both 
my  children  I  find  certain  facts  which  I  cannot  explain  on  the  peripheral  view : 
(i)  The  child  does  not  show  differences  of  ease,  skill,  etc.,  in  favour  of  either 
hand  at  this  early  age,  as  far  as  can  be  detected;  (2)  after  beginning  to  use 
the  right  hand  for  strenuous  efforts  the  two  hands  are  still  used  indiscrimi- 
nately for  easy  movements,  near  distances,  etc.  How  can  this  be  explained  ? 
Why  should  not  the  child  economize  —  as  adults  do  —  in  all  movements,  using 
the  right  hand  after  experience  of  its  'greater  efficiency'  for  everything,  when 
circumstances  permit?  The  view  of  Professor  James  seems  to  require  what 
I  may  call  a  'cat  and  kitten'  arrangement  of  nervous  discharges,  i.e.  certain 
pathways  of  voluminous  discharge  for  right-hand  movements  opened  up  by 
earlier  more  successful  movements,  and,  at  the  same  time,  other  pathways  for 
the  same  discharges  when  less  voluminous  —  not  due  to  the  earlier  successful 
movements.  We  have  not  knowledge  enough  to  say  it  may  not  be ;  but  it 
looks  to  me  like  a  'large  hole  for  the  cat  and  a  little  hole  for  the  kitten'  — 
an  arrangement  which  Professor  James  argues  against,  at  least  in  one  con- 
nection (Princ.  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  592).  But  that  the  child  does  ex- 
tend the  use  of  the  right  hand,  even  when  circumstances  would  seem  to  dis- 
courage it,  is  seen  in,  (3),  the  very  striking  fact,  that  the  right  hand  is  used 
to  grasp  objects,  etc.,  which  lie  on  the  left  side  of  the  child;  movements  in 
which  the  left  hand  would  seem  to  have  actually  more  skill,  ease,  and  prac- 
tice. Professor  Ladd  seems  to  accept  my  first  interpretation  (Psychology, 
Descriptive  and  Explanatory,  p.  222). 


Theoretical  77 

remains  useful  only  for  such  elementary  experiences  as  those 
I  have  enumerated  above. 

Again,  as  at  the  end  of  the  last  chapter,  I  must  call  atten- 
tion not  only  to  the  complication  which  these  experiments 
give  to  the  method  of  studying  children,  but  also  to  the  fine 
uniformity  which  appears  through  them  in  the  working  of 
the  law  of  dynamogenesis,  upon  which  rests  the  theory  of 
development  stated  in  the  following  chapters. 


CHAPTER  V 

INFANTS'  MOVEMENTS 
§  i.  Descriptive;  Tracery  Imitation 

IN  earlier  chapters,  the  general  conditions  of  infants'  re- 
sponses in  movement  have  been  pointed  out  and  some  special 
problems  set :  a  few  further  points  of  interest  may  now  be 
brought  up  in  connection  with  the  rise  of  the  more  complex 
movements. 

From  the  beginning  of  independent  life,  movement  is  the 
infant's  natural  response  to  all  influences.  And,  more  than 
this,  Bain  and  Preyer  seem  to  have  made  out  their  case,  that 
from  the  outset  there  are  movements  which  are  spontaneous, 
due  to  discharge  of  the  motor  centres  unsolicited  by  definite 
external  stimulations.1  At  any  rate,  no  observation  made 
after  birth  can  decide  the  question  one  way  or  the  other 
whether  sensation  or  movement  is  the  earlier  fact  in  onto- 
genetic  development.  It  remains  for  the  embryologists  to 
continue  their  work,  and  this  is  where  Preyer's  results  get 
their  principal  value. 

Reflexes.  —  In  regard  to  movements  more  properly  reflex 
and  responsive,  I  may  record  a  few  detached  observations 
on  my  child.  Carefully  planned  experiments  with  her,  made 
in  the  ninth  month,  showed  the  native  walking  reflex  —  alter- 
native movement  of  the  legs  —  very  strongly  marked.  I  held 
her  by  the  body,  having  made  the  legs  quite  free,  in  a  posi- 

1  A  position  extended  to  micro-organisms  by  Jennings,  Behaviour  oj 
Lower  Organisms,  1906. 

78 


Descriptive  79 

tion  which  allowed  the  bare  feet  to  rest  lightly  upon  a  smooth 
table.  The  reflex  seemed  to  come  somewhat  suddenly,  for 
up  to  the  middle  of  the  eighth  month  I  could  not  discover 
more  than  a  single  alternation;  and  this  I  had  determined 
not  to  take  as  evidence,  since  it  might  well  arise  by  chance. 
But,  in  the  ninth  month,  I  observed  as  many  as  three  and 
four  well-regulated  alternations,  in  succession.  At  first  most 
of  these  movements  were  the  reverse  of  the  natural  walking 
movements,  being  oftenest  such  as  would  carry  the  child 
backward.  This,  however,  passed  away.  I  have  the  follow- 
ing note  on  June  13,  1890,  the  child  being  one  day  short  of 
nine  months  old :  "  Walking  movements,  3  to  4  alternations, 
backwards  oftenest,  but  tending  rapidly  to  forward  move- 
ments ;  later,  2  experiments,  each  showing  3  to  4  alternations 
forwards  very  plainly;"  and  on  June  19:  "Fine  activity  in 
walking  reflex  —  good  alternations,  but  more  backwards  than 
forwards  —  clearly  reflex,  from  stimulus  to  the  soles."  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  this  backward  alternation  1  might  be  due  to 
some  accident  of  stimulation  or  discharge  when  the  reflex 
was  first  called  out ;  a  tendency  which  early  efforts  at  creep- 
ing would  soon  correct.  Yet  in  H.'s  case,  it  was  so  marked 
that  for  a  period  she  preferred  to  creep  backward.2 

A  few  observations  were  made  also  upon  unilateral  re- 
flexes.3   A  gentle  touch  with  finger  or  feather  on  the  cheek, 

1  Two  other  cases  of  this  have  been  verbally  reported  to  me.     A.  G.  Parrott 
reports  such  alternative  movements  in  a  boy  twelve  weeks  old.     The  second 
exact  observation  I  owe  to  Professor  Cattell. 

2  For  interesting  experiments  on  the  method  and  variations  of  walking  by 
different  children  of  both  sexes  and  by  adults,  see  H.  Vierordt,  Der  Gang  des 
Menschen  (Tubingen,  1881).     Similar  valuable  observations  might  be  made 
by  measurements  of  the  intervals,  directions,  etc.,  of  children's  footprints  in 
the  damp  yielding  sand  of  the  seashore. 

3  Cf.  Kussmaul,  Untersuchungen  zur  Seelenleben  der  Neugeborncn  Men- 
schen, p.  18,  for  similar  experiments;  and  Vierordt,  in  Gerhardt's  Handbuch 
der  Kinder krankheiten,  I.,  p.  215. 


8o  Infants'   Movements 

or  beside  the  nose,  or  upon  the  ear,  when  H.  was  sleeping 
quietly  upon  her  back,  called  out  always  the  hand  on  the 
same  side.  After  two  or  three  such  irritations,  her  sleep  be- 
came troubled  and  she  turned  upon  the  bed,  or  used  both 
hands  to  rub  the  place  stimulated.  Tickling  of  the  sole  of 
the  foot  also,  besides  causing  a  reaction  in  the  same  foot, 
tended  to  bring  about  a  movement  of  the  hand  on  the  same 
side.  These  observations,  not  a  large  number,  were  made 
in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  months. 

In  order  to  test  the  growth  of  voluntary  control  over  the 
muscles  of  the  hand  and  fingers,  I  determined  to  observe 
the  phenomena  of  H.'s  attempts  at  drawing  and  writing,  for 
which  she  showed  great  fondness  as  soon  as  imitation  was 
well  fixed.  Selecting  a  few  objects  well  differentiated  in 
outline,  —  animals  which  she  had  already  learned  to  recog- 
nize and  name  after  a  fashion,  —  I  drew  them  one  by  one 
on  paper  and  let  her  imitate  the  'copy.'  The  results  I  have 
in  a  series  of  'drawings'  of  hers,  extending  from  the  last 
week  of  her  nineteenth  month  to  the  middle  of  the  twenty- 
seventh  month.  The  results  show  that,  with  this  child,  up 
to  the  beginning  of  the  twenty-seventh  month  there  was  no 
connection  apparent  between  a  mental  picture  in  conscious- 
ness and  the  movements  made  by  the  hands  and  fingers  in 
attempting  to  draw  it.  The  'drawing'  was  simply  the  vaguest 
and  most  general  imitation  of  the  teacher's  movements,  not 
the  tracing  of  a  mental  picture.  And  the  attempt  was  no 
better  when  a  'copy'  was  made  by  myself  on  the  paper  — 
a  rough  outline  drawing  of  a  man,  etc.  There  was  no 
semblance  of  conformity  between  the  child's  drawing 
and  the  copy.  Further,  while  she  could  identify  the 
copy  and  name  the  animal,  she  could  not  identify  her  own 
effort,  except  so  far  as  she  remembered  what  object  she  set 
out  to  make.  See  Figures  I.,  II.,  III.,  and  IV.,  for  speci- 


Descriptive 


81 


mens  illustrating  the  straightness  and  rigidity  of  her  early 
attempts. 


Cat:  10th  month.  Man:  20th  month. 

FIG.  I.  —  EARLY  DRAWINGS  WITH  COPY 


Man:  20th  month.  Bird:  20th  month. 

FIG.  II.  — EARLY  DRAWINGS  WITHOUT  COPY 

With  it  all  there  was  on  her  face  an  expression  of 
dissatisfaction  with  her  later  attempts,  similar  to  that 
which  one  observes  in  the  efforts  of  the  year-old  to 
speak.  My  little  girl  would  hide  her  head  after  making 
a  drawing,  extend  the  pencil  to  me,  and  say,  'Papa  make 
man.'  It  seemed  to  indicate  a  sense  of  what  was  ex- 
pected beyond  the  ability  to  attain  the  process  of  accom- 
plishing it. 

In  Figs.  III.  and  IV.  we  see  some  growth  in  variety 
of  shape  and  direction  with  increased  mobility  of  the 
hand  and  arm,  but  still  no  imitation  in  outline  is 
apparent. 


82 


Infants    Movements 


b.  Cat.  d.  Cow. 

FIG.  III.  -  DRAWING  WITHOUT  COPY  :  END  OF  »STH  MONTH 


M 


a.  Man  (two  trials).  b.  Bird. 

FIG.  iv.  — WITH  COPY:  EARLY  IN  a6TH  MONTH 

Fig.  V.  shows  further  complications  in  movement. 


a.  Man  :  with  copy.  b.  Man  :  without  copy. 

FIG.  V.  —  LATER  MORE  COMPLICATED  DRAWINGS 

In  the  nature  of  the  movements  which  the  child  made 
in  this  series   of  drawings,  there   is    marked  change  and 


Descriptive  83 

development  which  may  be  briefly  described.  There  is 
growth  from  angular  straight  lines  to  curves,  from  move- 
ments one  way  exclusively  to  reverse  movements,  and  an 
increasing  tendency  to  complex  intricate  figures,  which  last 
probably  results  from  greatly  increased  ease,  variety,  and 
rapidity  of  movement.  At  first  she  made  only  sweep- 
ing 'arm  movements/  then  began  to  flex  the  wrist  some- 
what, and  toward  the  end  of  the  series  given  above,  as  is 
evident  in  the  figures,  with  no  teaching,  manipulated  the 
pencil  with  her  fingers  considerably.  This  seems  to  give 
support  to  the  opinion  of  professional  writing-teachers 
that  the  'arm  movement'  is  most  natural  and  effective  for 
purposes  of  penmanship. 

Further,  all  her  curves  were  made  by  movements  from 
left  to  right  going  upward  and  from  right  to  left  down- 
ward, like  the  movements  of  the  hands  of  a  clock  (see  the 
arrow-heads  in  Fig.  V.  a).  This  is  the  method  of  our  usual 
writing  as  contrasted  with  'back-hand.'  She  also  pre- 
ferred lateral  to  vertical  movements  on  the  paper.  Her 
most  frequent  and  easy  'drawing'  consisted  of  a  series  of 
rapid  right  and  left  strokes  almost  parallel  to  one  another, 
constituting  very  narrow  and  long  loops. 

But  early  in  the  twenty-seventh  month  a  change  came. 
I  drew  a  rough  human  figure,  naming  the  parts  in  succes- 
sion as  they  were  made:  she  suddenly  seemed  to  catch  the 
idea  of  tracing  each  part,  and  she  now  for  the  first  time  began 
to  make  figures  with  vertical  and  horizontal  proportion; 
i.e.  she  followed  the  order  she  saw  me  take:  'head'  (circle), 
'body'  (ellipse)  below,  'legs'  (two  straight  lines)  further 
below,  'hands'  (two  lines)  at  the  sides  of  the  body.  It  was 
all  done  in  the  crudest  fashion,  as  would  be  expected  from 
the  lack  of  muscular  co-ordination.  But  the  fact  was  un- 
mistakable that  with  the  simplification  of  the  figure  by 


84  Infants    Movements 

breaking  it  up  into  parts  had  come  also  the  idea  of  tracery 
imitation,  and  its  imperfect  execution.  By  the  'idea'  of 
tracery  imitation,  I  mean  the  sense  of  connection  between 
what  was  visually  in  her  own  consciousness  and  the  move- 
ment of  her  own  hand  or  pencil.  The  visual  pictures  or 
copies  had  been  there  in  all  her  previous  trials,  and  so  had 
the  hand  movements,  both  the  sight  of  them  and  the  mus- 
cular sensations ;  but  there  had  been  no  sense  of  a  connection 
between  them  and  agreement  in  the  result  when  they  were 
compared. 

As  yet,  however,  it  was  limited  to  two  or  three  copies  — 
objects  which  she  saw  me  make.  That  it  was  now  not 
simply  imitation  of  my  movements  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  she  did  not  imitate  my  movements:  she  looked 
intently  upon  the  figure  which  I  made,  not  at  my  move- 
ments, and  then  strove  to  imitate  the  figure  with  move- 
ments of  her  own  very  different  from  mine.  But  she  had 
not  generalized  the  idea  away  from  particular  figures,  for 
she  could  not  trace  at  all  an  altogether  new  figure  in  right 
lines.  Further,  she  traced  these  particular  figures  just 
as  well  without  written  copies  before  her:  here,  therefore, 
is  the  rise  of  the  tracery  imitation  of  the  child's  own  mental 
picture  —  a  fact  of  great  theoretical  interest.1 

Fig.  VI.  reproduces  the  first  successful  imitation  of  a 
visual  copy,  the  copy  which  she  imitated  being  also  given. 

Figs.  VII.  and  VIII.  show  further  development  in  freedom 
and  complication. 

A  curious  phenomenon,  which  has  been  noticed  also  by 
Passy2  in  the  drawings  of  much  older  children,  was  evident 
in  H.'s  attempts  to  extend  her  drawings  to  other  objects. 
This  is  the  tendency  to  neglect  the  new  object  or  copy  and 

1  See  first  announcement  in  Science,  Jan.  8,  1892. 
1  Revue  Philosophique,  December,  1891,  p.  614. 


Descriptive 


substitute  for  it  in  whole  or  part  some  drawing  which  she 
had  already  learned  to  make.    For  example,  having  ana- 


a.  Copy.  b.  Drawing:  l.head;  2,  body;  3,4,  legs;  5,  6, arms 

(all  in  the  order  in  which  they  were  made). 

FIG.  VI.  —  FIRST  SUCCESSFUL  TRACERY   IMITATION:    DEC.  8,  1891    (LAST 
WEEK  OF  27x11  MONTH) 

lyzed  man  after  me  into  head,  body,  legs,  and  arms,  this 
became  her  scheme  for  drawing  all  other  creatures.  When 
told  to  draw  a  bird  after  a  copy  set  before  her,  she  gave  it 
all  these  features,  conforming  them  in  a  measure  to  the 
general  shape  of  a  bird,  but  putting  two  strokes  at  the  sides 
for  arms.  I  shall  say  more  about  this  fact  in  the  next  sec- 


86 


Infants    Movements 


a.  With  copy.  b.  Without  copy. 

FIG.  VII.  — MAN:  DEC.  13,  1891  (LAST  DAY  OF  27™  MONTH) 

tion  in  discussing  the  origin  of  handwriting;   it  is  also  sug- 
gestive in  connection  with  the  rise  of  the  general  notion.1 

The  differences  to  be  seen  by  comparing  a.  and  b.  in  each 
of  the  Figs.  VII.  and  VIII.  show  the  degree  in  which  the  child 
was  still  dependent  upon  the  external  visual  copy  for  the 
control  of  her  imitation  tracings.  She  copied  her  memory 
picture,  at  least  when  she  had  no  external  copy;  but  she 
controlled  the  reproduction  by  the  copy,  when  she  had  it. 
1  See  below,  Chap.  XI.,  §  i. 


Descriptive 


a.  With  copy. 


b.  Without  copy. 


FIG.  VIII.  —  LATE  DRAWINGS  :  MAN  (SSTH  MONTH)  .    THE  WORDS  WRITTEN 
IN  FIGS.  VII.  a.  AND  VIII.  b.  ARE  FROM  THE  CHILD'S  OWN  UTTERANCES, 

TAKEN  DOWN  AT  THE  TIME,  AS  SHE  DREW  THE  SEVERAL  PARTS.  THE 
APPARENT  FACIAL  OUTLINE  IN  a.  OF  THIS  FIGURE  IS,  I  THINK,  PURELY 
ACCIDENTAL. 


88  Infants    Movements 


§  2.  Interpretation  oj  Tracery  Imitation:  the  Origin  of 
Handwriting 

It  is  easily  seen  that  the  fact  to  which  I  have  given  the 
name  'tracery  imitation'  lies  at  the  basis  of  handwriting. 
It  is  clear  that  handwriting  is  acquired  by  imitation  of  a 
copy.  Each  letter  is  acquired  by  the  tracing  out  of  a  form 
put  before  the  child.  There  are  two  very  distinct  steps, 
however,  in  the  acquisition  of  handwriting,  the  first  of  which 
is  tracery  imitation  of  an  external  copy;  and  the  second  is 
the  similar  imitation  of  a  memory  picture  or  form.  The 
relation  of  these  two  things  to  each  other  and,  with  that,  the 
general  theory  of  handwriting,  requires  farther  analysis. 
I  shall  depict  in  some  detail  the  progress  of  this  function, 
since  it  serves  to  illustrate  the  general  theory  of  the  develop- 
ment of  muscular  control  worked  out  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  preliminary  question  as  to  how  the  child  gets  its 
visual  apprehension  of  form  may  be  answered,  and  has  been, 
in  two  ways.  Some  hold  that  the  actual  form  or  arrange- 
ment of  the  retinal  elements  stimulated  by  the  rays  of  light 
from  the  object  seen  is  conveyed  to  consciousness  by  a  series 
of  'local  signs'  —  distinct  quality  of  some  kind  which  serves 
to  distinguish  each  visual  or  anatomical  point  from  every  other. 
Others  hold  that  the  eye  explores  in  its  movement  the  outline 
of  the  object,  and  a  constant  succession  of  sensations  of  eye 
movement  thus  represents  the  particular  form  explored.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that,  whether  one  or  both  of  these  causes  operate 
to  give  the  child  its  form  intuition,  we  can  still  say  that  there 
is  a  constant  series  of  sensations  from  the  eyes,  which  can  be 
run  over  in  one  direction,  or  the  reverse;  this  we  may  call 
the  'visual  form  series,'  v,  v',  v",  in  the  analysis  of  hand- 
writing. 


The   Origin   of  Handwriting  89 

But  the  child,  in  setting  out  to  draw,  moves  his  hand, 
thus  getting  sensations  from  the  hand  itself  according  to  its 
locality  at  this  moment  and  at  that.  If  you  consider  the 
hand  as  moving  slowly,  it  will  be  evident  that  there  are  touch 
sensations,  joint  sensations,  muscle-tension  sensations,  etc., 
giving  together  a  certain  massive  sense  of  the  locality  of  the 
hand  as  it  goes  from  place  to  place.  With  no  care  as  to  the 
exact  character  of  these  sensations,  we  may  yet  say  that  there 
is  a  series  which  is  constant  for  the  drawing  of  the  outline  of 
a  plane  figure;  this  series  we  may  call  the  'muscular  form 
series/  denoted  by  m,  mf,  m". 

But,  further,  the  child  has  other  means  of  finding  out  about 
movements  than  by  the  sensations  from  his  own  hand  and 
arm.  He  sees  other  people's  movements  and  his  own.  In 
this  case  of  drawing,  he  is  instructed  in  holding  his  pencil, 
sees  his  teacher  move  his  pencil  over  the  paper,  sees  his 
own  arm  and  hand  and  pencil-point  in  each  case.  This, 
it  is  evident,  gives  a  more  or  less  exact  additional  series  of 
eye  sensations,  according  as  the  child  is  able  by  frequent 
following  of  the  movements  of  others  and  himself  to  appro- 
priate each  such  set  of  movements  to  a  regular  visual  form. 
This  third  series  of  sensations,  in  a  particular  case,  we  may 
call  the  '  optical  movement  series,'  o,  of,  o",  etc. 

It  is  evident  that  the  acquisition  of  writing  involves  all 
of  these  three  series ;  and  it  is  easy  to  show  that  they  are  all 
present  in  our  most  rapid  and  careless  writing.  If  one 
shut  his  eyes  and  write,  he  preserves  the  general  form  of 
the  letters,  but  they  are  badly  made  compared  with  those 
which  he  makes  when  he  sees  his  pen  and  follows  its  move- 
ment. This  shows  his  dependence  upon  the  o  series.  But 
he  can  still  very  greatly  improve  his  penmanship  if  his  paper 
be  ruled,  or  more  again  if  he  write  after  a  well-written  copy ; 
this  shows  the  dependence,  relatively  slight,  upon  the  v 


90  Infants'   Movements 

series.  As  to  the  revival  of  the  v  series  also,  as  copies  to  which 
to  conform,  cases  of  verbal  blindness  show  that  lesions  of  the 
optical  brain  centre  may  make  it  impossible  for  one  to  write 
at  all.1  Further,  if  we  try  to  write  with  the  skin  benumbed 
with  cold,  or  on  a  surface  which  yields,  the  letters  are  made 
without  form  and  thrown  out  of  their  due  proportion.  This 
in  turn  shows  the  continual  presence  of  the  m  series.2 

That  a  child  gets  his  visual  form  (v)  series  first  is  proved 
from  his  recognition  and  even  naming  of  figures,  pictures, 
etc.,  before  he  draws  them  or  sees  them  drawn.  These 
series  are  at  first  few,  but  he  gradually  adds  to  them  as 
the  range  of  his  exploration  becomes  wider  and  as  familiar 
objects  become  in  his  experience  more  and  more  familiar. 
There  is  a  constant  tendency,  therefore,  from  the  random 
wandering  of  the  eyes  over  many  forms  and  over  shape- 
less things,  to  concentration  on  interesting,  familiar,  and 
regular  forms  of  things.  So  we  may  say  there  is  a  continual 
growth  and  upbuilding  of  different  v  series. 

This  is  at  the  expense  of  the  optical  movement  (0) 
series,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  following  considerations : 
At  first  the  child  follows  all  movements,  that  he  sees,  of 
himself  and  of  others,  with  equal  attention  —  his  eye  is  a 
slave  to  movement  anywhere  and  everywhere  —  his  atten- 
tion is  reflex  and  visual.  He  looks  closely  at  his  own  move- 
ments. His  visual  figure  series  follows  in  consciousness  the 
cue  set  by  his  optical  movement  series,  term  by  term,  thus :  — 

-<—     o,         of         o",         </",         etc., 
\        \        \          \ 

-<—    v,         v',        v",        T/",        etc. 

1  See  cases  cited  by  Brazier,  Revue  Philosophique,  October,  1892,  p.  338. 

2  See  Goldscheider's  demonstration  of  the  importance  of  pressure  sen- 
sations in  handwriting,  Physiologic  u.  Pathologic  der  Handschrift,  in  Zeit- 
schrift  fur  Psychiatric,  XXIV.,  1892. 


The    Origin   of  Handwriting  91 

But  when  he  learns,  as  I  have  said,  to  select  his  v  series,  he 
then  reverses  his  association  and  so  has  to  select  out  certain 
o  series.  He  sees  and  attends  to  the  movements  that  interest 
him,  the  things  that  concern  him;  he  prefers  the  toys  which 
his  eye  explores  by  preference.  So,  continually,  the  o  series 
get  broken  up  and  formed  anew,  according  as  the  o  elements 
are  lined  up  anew  under  the  lead  of  the  v  series,  thus :  — 

-<—    v,        i/,        v",        v"r,        etc., 

\        \         \          \ 
-«—    o,        o',        o",        o"',        etc. 

Now  there,  in  this  association,  is  the  rise  of  'tracery 
imitation'  in  its  crudest  form;  this  reversal  of  association 
between  the  o  and  the  v  elements.  Its  characteristics,  as 
imitation,  are  merely  the  vaguest  indications  of  direction 
and  proportion.  It  utilizes  no  constant  m  series ;  that  is,  no 
constant  detailed  series  of  hand  and  arm  movements,  but 
only  the  up  and  down,  and  right  and  left,  movements  acquired 
by  the  child  in  its  early  random  exercises,  together  with 
whatever  more  definite  movements  education  may  have  pro- 
duced. As  I  interpret  it,  H.'s  ability  suddenly  to  'imitate' 
my  drawing  of  a  man  was  largely  the  discovery  that  by  a 
series  of  ordinary  movements  of  her  own  which  she  saw  (o 
element),  and  which  her  random  practice  had  made  easy, 
she  could  bring  about,  in  a  measure,  what  I  did.  Instead  of 
her  eye  following  the  tracing  left  by  the  point  of  the  pen 
(v  series  subordinated  to  o  series),  as  formerly  it  did,  she  now 
found  that  her  hand  and  pen,  as  she  watched  them,  could 
follow  the  outline  I  had  made,  or  her  memory  of  it  (o  series 
subordinated  to  the  v  series). 

Such  as  it  is,  however,  tracery  imitation  is  a  long  way 
from  handwriting.  And  the  essential  difference  is  the  intro- 
duction of  sensations  of  movement  (m  series),  whereby 


92  Infants'    Movements 

the  operations  of  the  hand  are  held  in  control.  How,  then, 
does  the  m  series  get  its  influence  ? 

Eye  movements  start  in  a  chaotic  random  state,  as  we  have 
seen,  and  only  gradually  take  on  the  definite  character  of 
separate  series,  as  the  customary  explorations,  fixations, 
visual  curiosities  of  experience  serve  to  fix  them.  But  arm 
movements  are  just  the  reverse.  At  first  the  arm  is  capable 
of  very  few  movements,  the  elbow  of  one,  and  the  fingers  of 
none.  Moreover,  the  joints  are  stiff,  the  movements  to  a 
degree  inconvenient,  and  all  ventures  away  from  certain 
reactions  provided  for  by  native  arrangements  are  painful 
and  unsuccessful.  This  means  that  the  child  starts  with 
certain  very  definite  arm  movements  (m  series).  But  this 
does  not  last.  He  gets  limbered  up.  His  m  series  gets 
broken  into  units  and  recombined  into  new  series.  This  is 
seen  in  the  progress  shown  in  H.'s  series  of  drawings  given 
above. 

This  prepares  the  way  for  a  second  victory  of  the  v  series. 
At  first  the  hand  must  move  in  certain  directions  represented 
in  consciousness  by  the  series  m,  mf,  m",  etc. ;  the  eye  can 
move  in  any  direction  indifferently;  so  the  eye  follows  the 
hand,  and  we  have  in  consequence :  — 

-< —    m,        m',        m",        m'",        etc., 
\  \         \  \ 

•< —    v,         vf,         v",         v"',        etc. 

But  as  the  w's  get  broken  up  out  of  their  native  series  and  the 
v's  get  tied  together  into  series,  there  comes  a  conflict  for 
leadership,  followed  by  the  reverse  association :  — 

-< —    v,        i/,        v",        vm        etc., 

\        \  \         \ 

-< —    m,        m'         m''         m'"        etc. 


The    Origin   of  Handwriting  93 

Now  certain  muscular  sensations  (m  elements)  represent 
movements  which,  being  also  seen,  have  o  elements  attached 
to  them.  And  we  have  already  seen  that  tracery  imitation 
requires  a  certain  correspondence  between  relatively  fixed 
v  series  and  relatively  free  o  series.  The  breaking  up  of 
the  m  series  just  described  now  makes  it  possible  for  more 
of  these  correspondences  to  occur,  i.e.  for  more  movements 
seen  to  describe  figures  seen.  Now  it  is  by  the  gradual 
increase  of  these  correspondences,  this  practice  and  emphasis 
into  habit,  that  handwriting  is  built  up  with  much  effort. 

There  is,  therefore,  an  extremely  close  association  between 
a  visual  figure  series  and  the  series  of  hand  movements  re- 
quired to  reproduce  it.  And  this  association  between  them 
is  secured  by  the  reproduction  concomitantly  through  the 
seen  hand  movements  (o  series)  of  a  real  figure  which  con- 
forms to  the  original  visual  ideal  by  which  the  whole  is 
prompted.  To  complicate  our  illustration,  this  is  what  we 
finally  get :  — 

-< —    v,        vf,        v",        if",        etc., 

\        \         \         \ 
^—    o,        o',        o",        o'",        etc., 

\        \         \         \ 
-< —    m,        m',        m",        m'",        etc. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  that  in  handwriting  the  move- 
ments made  are  controlled  by  two  different  but  concurring 
agencies :  first,  the  sensations  in  the  arm  and  hand  must  be, 
point  by  point,  those  called  for  by  the  fast  associations  of 
movement  with  letter  outlines.  This  tendency  is  actually 
so  strong  in  the  young  child  who  has  learned  to  make  a  few 
figures  successfully,  that  it  draws  new  objects  like  the  old 
shapes,  even  when  they  are  really  very  different,  and  in  spite 
of  close  attention  to  the  plain  copies  put  before  them.  And, 


94  Infants    Movements 

second,  the  figure  which  the  eye  takes  in  as  the  pen  point 
inscribes  it,  must  also  agree,  point  by  point,  with  the  outline 
figure  which  is  held  in  consciousness  and  aimed  at. 

With  the  further  development  of  handwriting,  the  per- 
formance tends  to  become  independent  of  sight.  In  swift 
writing  we  use  our  eyes  mainly  to  keep  on  the  line  and  on 
the  paper,  not  to  see  that  the  letters  are  made  properly. 
As  far  as  we  do  examine  them,  it  is  only  to  see  that  they  fall 
within  the  limits  of  legibility;  and  we  know  so  well  about 
what  our  hand  can  do,  that  we  rarely  have  occasion  to  revise 
a  word  once  written.  The  muscular  series  (m  series)  be- 
comes so  delicately  adjusted  to  the  needs  of  the  memory 
image  of  figure,  of  letter,  and  of  word  (v  series),  that  a  further 
optical  test  (o  series)  is  not  required. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  also,  that  this  growing  inde- 
pendence in  the  sensations  of  movement  under  practice  and 
habit  may  go  so  far  that  the  visual  copy  (v  series)  may  be  dis- 
pensed with  altogether ;  this  is  shown  to  be  true  in  pathologi- 
cal cases  of  alexia,  or  inability  to  read,  which  do  not  involve 
agraphia,  or  inability  to  write.  In  these  cases  we  have  the 
extreme  motor  type  of  verbal  memory,  emphasized  by 
Strieker:  persons  who  remember  written  words  by  the 
memory  of  the  sensations  involved  in  writing  them. 

A  further  fundamental  question  arises,  however,  when  we 
come  to  examine  the  actual  parallelism  of  the  associated 
series  of  elements  involved.  How  does  it  come  about  that 
the  child  is  able  to  secure  the  agreement,  term  by  term, 
between  the  elements  of  the  v  and  the  m  series  respectively 
—  the  agreement  by  which  this  association  is  established? 
How  does  he  get  v  with  m,  vf  with  m',  v"  with  m",  in  this 
regular  way,  and  both  in  proper  association  with  o,  o',  o", 
etc.  ?  This  is  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  any  adaptation 
of  movements  to  ends,  whether  voluntary  or  not.  Its  dis- 


The    Origin   of  Handwriting  95 

cussion  is  taken  up  later,1  and  in  that  connection  the  general 
principles  are  given  by  which  this  case  may  be  solved  with 
others. 

I  need  not  go  into  the  further  questions  of  the  pathology 
and  abnormalities  of  handwriting.  The  kinds  and  varieties 
of  agraphia  —  inability  to  write,  from  nervous  lesion  —  are 
well  classified,  on  the  basis ,  of  impairment  of  one  or  more 
of  the  elements  involved,  by  Goldscheider,  in  the  paper 
already  quoted.  His  explanation  of  mirror-writing  is, 
however,  so  clearly  a  proof  of  the  adequacy  of  the  point 
in  which  his  theory  and  mine  agree,  that  I  may  briefly 
explain  it. 

Mirror-writing  is  the  form  of  inscription  which  arises 
from  tracing  words  with  the  left  hand  by  an  exact  redupli- 
cation of  the  movements  of  the  right  hand,  in  a  symmet- 
rical way  from  the  central  point  in  front  of  the  body,  out 
toward  the  left.  It  produces  a  form  of  reversed  writing  which 
cannot  be  read  until  it  is  seen  in  a  mirror.  Many  left-handed 
children  tend  to  write  in  this  way.  Some  adults,  on  taking 
a  pen  to  write  with  the  left  hand,  find  they  can  write  only  in 
this  way.  Even  those,  like  myself,  to  whom  the  movements 
seem,  when  thought  of  in  visual  terms,  quite  confusing  and 
impossible,  yet  find,  when  they  try  to  write  with  both  hands 
together,  in  the  air,  from  a  central  point  right  and  left,  that 
the  left-hand  mirror-writing  movements  are  very  natural 
and  easy.  Now,  why  is  it? 

If  a  man  is  of  the  so-called  'visual'  type,  i.e.  if  he  depends 
mainly  on  his  v  series,  recalling,  in  his  writing,  the  look  of 
the  letters,  etc.,  and  by  comparing  it  with  the  resulting  writ- 
ing, conforming  his  movement  series  to  it,  then  any  move- 

1  It  is  the  fundamental  fact  of  motor  adjustment  or  'Accommodation,' 
by  'selection  from  over-produced  movements,'  to  which  I  give  the  name 
'functional  selection,'  as  discussed  below,  Chap.  VII. 


96  Infants'   Movements 

ments  which  violate  the  figure  presented  by  visual  memory 
are  unintelligible.  Such  a  man  must  reproduce,  with  his 
left  hand,  the  visual  images  as  produced  by  the  right.  That 
is,  he  must  write  from  left  to  right  with  both  hands,  using 
visually  symmetrical  images.  This  represents  the  power  of 
the  v  series  to  bring  the  movements  of  both  hands  into  con- 
formity to  it.  If,  on  the  contrary,  his  m  series  has  grown 
independent  by  practice,  and  he  remembers  written  words 
not  by  the  way  they  look  mainly,  but  by  the  way  it  feels  to 
write  them  —  if  he  is  of  the  so-called  'motor'  type  in  his 
handwriting  —  then  his  left-hand  writing  must  reproduce  the 
series  of  muscular  sensations,  as  his  right-hand  writing  has 
established  them.  This  represents  the  power  of  movements 
established  by  one  hand  to  carry  the  other  hand  also  with  it 
in  a  symmetrical  way.  His  left-hand  position  must  dupli- 
cate at  each  moment  his  right-hand  position,  when  he  comes 
to  try  the  experiment  of  writing  in  the  air  with  both  hands. 
This  gives  symmetrical  movements  with  the  two  hands, 
which  means  mirror- writing  with  the  left  hand.1 

The  following  notice  and  criticism  of  Goldscheider's  paper, 
revised  slightly  from  an  earlier  review2  of  it,  may  serve  to 
show  the  difference  between  my  theory  and  his,  and  at  the 
same  time  sum  up  the  foregoing  discussion. 

Goldscheider  gives  first  a  theoretical  account  of  the  origin 
of  what  I  have  called  'tracery  imitation'  under  the  equiva- 
lent phrase  malende  Reproduction,  endeavouring  to  account 
for  the  association  between  visual  pictures  (letters,  figures, 
etc.)  and  the  hand  movements  necessary  to  reproduce  them 

1  This  has  been  held  by  Fechner  and  others  to  be  a  strong  proof  that  the 
discharge  of  energy  into  one  side  of  the  body  tends  to  stimulate  the  corre- 
sponding members  of  the  other  side  to  similar  movements  (Mitbewegungen) . 
I  have  mentioned  already  that  my  experiments    on   the    infant's  use  of 
its  hands  tend  to  confirm  this  view. 

2  American  Journ.  o/  Psychology,  V.,  1893,  420-422. 


The    Origin   of  Handwriting  97 

(as  in  drawing,  writing,  etc.).  He  finds  three  factors  or 
'moments'  in  the  rise  of  tracery  imitation:1  A,  an  optical 
picture  of  the  hand  movements  required  for  making  the  re- 
quired figure  (optische  Vorstellung  der  Handbewegung  ;  my  o 
series),  derived  from  the  child's  earlier  sight  of  his  own  and 
others'  hand  movements;  B,  a  series  of  new  motor  dis- 
charges strengthened  by  practice,  felt  as  C,  a  series  of  sensa- 
tions of  actual  movement,  by  which  the  discharges  are  regu- 
lated and  controlled  (motorisches  Bewegungsbild ;  my  m 
series).  Moment  A  is  clearly  seen  in  the  fact  often  remarked, 
that  in  writing  with  the  eyes  closed  we  still  follow  the  pen 
point  in  its  inscription  of  an  optical  outline.  Further,  in 
moment  A  there  are  two  factors:  first,  constant  memories 
(Bilder)  of  each  position,  and  of  each  amount  and  direction 
of  movement  of  the  member  (my  m  series) ;  and  second, 
optical  presentations  of  the  same  positions  and  movements. 
Here  we  have,  therefore,  movements  both  felt  and  seen. 
Tracery  imitation  then  consists  in  the  fact  that  new  move- 
ments are  held,  through  the  sensations  they  give,  into  con- 
formity to  the  series  established  by  being  both  felt  and  seen. 
This,  it  is  at  once  seen,  leaves  out  of  account  altogether 
the  visual  figure  series  (my  v  series)  established  quite  in- 
dependently of  hand  movements.  Goldscheider's  theory  is, 
therefore,  in  so  far  inadequate,  for  it  assumes  tracery  imita- 
tion, i.e.  it  supposes  that  the  hand  has  already  gone  over  the 
figure  to  be  imitated,  giving  moment  A  (requisite  movements 
both  felt  and  seen).  But  the  question  remains  behind  this: 
How  were  such  series  selected  from  other  movements  felt  as 
well  as  seen?  How  does  the  optical  presentation  of  figure 
(optisches  Bild  des  Gestaltes]  get  associated  point  by  point 
with  the  twofold  series  (m  series  and  o  series)  represented 
by  Goldscheider's  moment  A  ?  Goldscheider  does  not  take 

1  See  p.  587  of  the  art.  cited,  where  he  gives  a  resume. 

H 


98  Infants^   Movements 

account  of  the  fact  that  visual  recognition  of  figure  (letters, 
pictures,  etc.)  is  definitely  established  long  before  the  child 
is  able  or  has  any  tendency  to  try  to  trace  them,  as  has  been 
shown  above.  He  is  wrong,  accordingly,  in  identifying  the 
original  optical  figure  series  with  the  optical  hand  movement 
series. 

The  question  at  issue  then  is :  How  does  the  purely  visual 
figure  series  (v  series)  come  to  stimulate  the  two  series  which 
originate  from  the  movement  (m  and  o  series).  My  observa- 
tions show  —  to  sum  up  the  foregoing  pages  —  that  the 
process  is  as  follows:  As  the  child's  experience  widens,  its 
optical  perception  of  figure  grows  exact,  so  that  certain 
retinal  or  eye  movement  series  grow  more  and  more  fixed. 
At  this  period  the  arm  and  hand  movement  series,  at  first 
few  and  fixed,  are  broken,  up  with  the  increasing  mobility 
of  the  member.  Consequently,  (i)  from  the  arm  movement 
sensations  those  elements  are  emphasized  which  represent 
movements  seen  as  well  as  felt,  and  (2)  from  the  latter  those 
are  further  emphasized  which  produce  results  identical  with 
elements  in  certain  definite  figure  series  already  established 
by  the  eye.  This  reproduction  of  visual  figure  elements,  by 
movements  which  are  both  seen  and  felt,  establishes  firmly 
the  association  between  the  movement  sensations  (m  series) 
and  the  figure  presentations  (v  series),  and  the  optical 
memories  of  the  hand  movements  (o  series)  tend  to  fall 
away. 

The  validity  of  this  analysis  as  opposed  to  that  of  Gold- 
scheider  rests  then  upon  the  evidence  that  the  child  has  a 
sense  of  figure  established  first  by  vision  alone.  Several 
points  may  be  cited  in  support  of  this  view:  i.  The  child 
recognizes  letters,  pictures,  etc.,  before  it  is  able  to  trace 
them  or  speak  their  equivalents.  2.  We  can  trace  figures 
by  movements  of  the  head,  foot,  trunk,  etc.,  —  movements 


The    Origin   of  Handwriting  99 

which  we  cannot  see.  If  our  sense  of  figure  is  independent 
of  any  particular  thing  that  moves,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  this 
is  possible.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  sense  of  figure  is  derived 
entirely  from  movements  both  felt  and  seen,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  such  accomplishments  are  to  be  accounted  for. 
3.  In  memories  of  actual  writing,  for  example,  my  auto- 
graph, I,  for  one,  picture  clearly  the  way  the  letters  look  as 
they  are  left  by  the  pen  on  the  paper,  and  also  the  sensa- 
tions of  movement  in  the  hand  and  arm:  but  hardly  at  all 
the  way  the  hand  or  pen  movements  look  at  the  successive 
stages  of  the  signature.  4.  In  the  case  of  writing,  a  blind 
man  has  no  series  corresponding  to  the  look  of  the  actual 
movements  to  those  who  see:  he  writes  by  the  association 
between  his  movement  sensations  and  the  touch  figure  series 
which  corresponds  to  the  visual  figure  series  of  the  man  who 
sees.1  5.  In  another  analogous  case,  the  child's  learning  to 
speak,  there  are  only  two  elements,  the  auditory  series,  in 
the  case,  we  will  say,  of  the  gutturals,  which  infants  some- 
times learn  first,  and  the  sound  series  which  results  from 
the  child's  own  voice  (omitting  the  movement  sensations 
which  are  not  in  question) ;  there  is  no  hearing  of  the  move- 
ments of  speech  in  addition  to  the  hearing  of  the  sounds 
spoken,  i.e.  nothing  at  all  corresponding  to  Goldscheider's 
optical  hand  movement  series,  considered  as  distinct  from 
the  resulting  visual  figure  series.  In  hearing,  accordingly, 
the  auditory  sound  'copy'  series  corresponds  to  my  visual 
figure  'copy'  series. 

1  Cf.  Broadbent's  remarks  on  the  writing  of  the  blind,  Brit.  Med.  Journ., 
1876,  I.,  p.  435. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SUGGESTION 
§  i.  General  Definition 

THE  rise  of  hypnotism  in  late  years  has  opened  the  way 
to  an  entirely  new  method  of  mental  study.  The  doctrine 
of  reflexes  was  before  largely  physiological,  and  only  patho- 
logical cases  could  be  cited  in  evidence  of  a  mechanism  in 
certain  forms  of  consciousness  as  well  as  out  of  it ;  and  even 
pathological  cases  of  extreme  sensitiveness  to  casual  sugges- 
tion from  the  environment  or  from  other  men  did  not  receive 
the  interpretation  which  the  phenomena  of  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion are  now  making  possible,  i.e.  that  suggestion  by  idea, 
or  through  consciousness,  must  be  recognized  to  be  as  funda- 
mental a  kind  of  motor  stimulus  as  the  direct  excitation  of  a 
sense  organ.  Nervous  reflexes  may  work  directly  through 
states  of  consciousness,  or  be  stimulated  by  them;  these 
states  of  consciousness  may  be  integral  portions  of  such 
reflexes ;  and,  further,  a  large  part  of  our  mental  life  is  made 
up  of  a  mass  of  such  ideo-motor  'suggestions/  which  are 
normally  in  a  state  of  subconscious  inhibition. 

Without  discussing  the  nature  of  the  hypnotic  state  in  the 
first  instance,  nor  venturing  to  pass  judgment  in  this  connec- 
tion upon  the  question  whether  the  suggestion  theory  is  suffi- 
cient to  explain  all  the  facts,  we  may  yet  isolate  the  aspect 
spoken  of  above,  and  discuss  its  general  bearings  in  the 
normal  life,  especially  of  children.  Of  course,  the  question 


General  Definition  101 

at  once  occurs,  is  the  normal  life  a  life  to  any  degree  of  ideo- 
motor  or  suggestive  reactions,  or  is  the  hypnotic  sleep  in  this 
aspect  of  it,  quite  an  artificial  thing?  Further,  if  such  sug- 
gestion is  normal  or  typical  in  the  mental  life,  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  inhibition  by  which  it  is  ordinarily  kept  under 
—  in  other  words,  what  is  its  relation  to  what  we  call  will? 
Leaving  this  second  question  altogether  unanswered  for  the 
present,1  it  has  occurred  to  me  to  observe  children,  especially 
my  own  H.  and  E.,  during  their  first  two  years,  to  see  if  light 
could  be  thrown  upon  the  first  inquiry  above.  If  it  be  true 
that  ideo-motor  suggestion  is  a  normal  thing,  then  early 
child  life  should  present  the  most  striking  analogies  to  the 
hypnotic  state  in  this  essential  respect.  This  is  a  field  that 
has  hitherto,  as  far  as  I  know,  been  largely  unexplored  by 
workers  in  the  psychology  of  suggestion. 

It  is  not  necessary,  I  think,  to  discuss  in  detail  the  mean- 
ing of  this  much-abused  but,  in  the  main,  very  well  defined 
word,  'suggestion.'  The  general  conception  may  be  suffi- 
ciently well  indicated  for  the  present  by  the  following  quota- 
tions from  authorities.  They  all  agree  on  the  main  phe- 
nomenon, their  definitions  differing  in  the  place  of  emphasis, 
according  as  one  aspect  rather  than  another  supplies  ground 
for  a  theory.  I  may  gather  them  up  in  my  own  definition, 
which  aims  to  describe  the  fundamental  fact  apart  from 
theory,  and  is  therefore  better  suited  to  our  preliminary  ex- 
position. I  have  myself  defined  suggestion  as  "from  the 
side  of  consciousness  .  .  .  the  tendency  of  a  sensory  or  an 
ideal  state  to  be  followed  by  a  motor  state,2  in  the  manner 
typified  by  the  abrupt  entrance  from  without  into  con- 
sciousness of  an  idea  or  image,  or  a  vaguely  conscious  stimu- 

1  See,  however,  Chap.  XIII.,  below. 

2  Science,  Feb.  27,  1891,  where  many  of  the  observations  given  in  this 
chapter  were  first  recorded. 


IO2  Suggestion 

lation,  which  tends  to  bring  about  the  muscular  or  volitional 
effects  which  ordinarily  follow  upon  its  presence."  * 

Janet  defines  suggestion  as  "a  motor  reaction  brought 
about  by  language  or  perception."  2  This  narrows  the  field 
to  certain  classes  of  stimulations,  well  defined  in  conscious- 
ness, and  overlooks  the  more  subtle  suggestive  influences 
emphasized  by  the  Nancy  school  of  theorizers.  Schmidkunz 
makes  it:  "die  Herbeirufung  eines  Ereignisses  durch  die 
Erweckung  seines  psychischen  Bildes."  3  This  again  makes 
a  mental  picture  of  the  suggested  'event'  in  consciousness 
necessary,  and,  besides,  does  not  rule  out  ordinary  complex 
associations.  It  neglects  the  requirement  insisted  upon  by 
Janet,  i.e.  that  the  stimulus  be  from  without,  as  from  hear- 
ing words,  seeing  actions,  objects,  etc.  Wundt  says:  "Sug- 
gestion ist  Association  mit  gleichzeitiger  Verengerung  des 
Bewusstseins  auf  die  durch  die  Association  angeregten  Vor- 
stellungen."  4  In  this  definition  Wundt  meets  the  objection 
urged  against  the  definition  of  suggestion  in  terms  of  com- 
plex association,  by  holding  down  the  association  to  a  'nar- 
rowed consciousness ' ;  but  he,  again,  neglects  the  outward 
nature  of  the  stimulus,  and  does  not  give  an  adequate  account 
of  how  this  narrowing  of  consciousness  upon  one  or  two  asso- 
ciated terms,  usually  a  sensori-motor  association,  is  brought 
about.  Ziehen:  "In  der  Beibringung  der  Vorstellung  liegt 
das  Wesen  der  Suggestion."  6  Here  we  have  the  sufficient 
recognition  of  the  artificial  and  external  source  of  the  stimu- 
lation, but  yet  we  surely  cannot  say  that  all  such  stimulations 
succeed  in  getting  suggestive  force.  A  thousand  things  sug- 
gested to  us  are  rejected,  scorned,  laughed  at.  This  is  so 
marked  a  fact  in  current  theory,  especially  on  the  pathological 

1  Cf.  also  Handbook  oj  Psychology,  II.,  297. 

J  Aut.  Psych.,  p.  218.  *  Hypnotismus  u.  Suggestion,  II.  Abs. 

•  Psych,  der  Suggestion.          *  PhUos.  Monatshejte,  XXIX.,  1893,  p.  489. 


General  Definition  103 

side,  that  I  have  found  it  convenient  to  use  a  special  phrase 
for  consciousness  when  in  the  purely  suggestible  condition, 
i.e.  'reactive  consciousness.'1  The  phrase  'conscious  re- 
flex' is  sometimes  used,  but  is  not  good  as  applied  to  these 
suggestive  reactions;  for  they  are  cortical  in  their  brain 
seat,  and  are  not  as  definite  as  ordinary  reflexes. 

For  our  present  purposes,  the  definition  just  given  from 
my  earlier  work  is  sufficient,  since  it  emphasizes  the  move- 
ment side  of  suggestion.  The  fundamental  fact  about  all 
suggestion,  —  not  hypnotic  suggestion  alone,  which  some  of 
the  definitions  which  I  have  cited  have  exclusive  reference 
to,2  —  is,  in  my  view,  the  removal  of  inhibitions  to  move- 
ment brought  about  by  a  certain  condition  of  consciousness 
which  may  be  called  'suggestibility.'  The  further  question, 
what  makes  consciousness  suggestible,  is  open  to  some  de- 
bate. There  are  two  general  statements  —  not  to  elaborate 
a  theory  here,  however  —  which  are  not  done  justice  to  by 
any  of  the  current  theories.  We  may  say,  first,  that  a  sug- 
gestible consciousness  is  one  in  which  the  ordinary  criteria  of 
belie}  are  in  abeyance ;  the  coefficients  of  reality,  to  use  the 
terms  of  an  earlier  discussion  of  belief,3  are  no  longer  appre- 
hended. Consciousness  finds  all  presentations  of  equal  value, 
in  terms  of  uncritical  reality-feeling.  It  accordingly  responds 
to  them  all,  each  in  turn,  readily  and  equally.  Second :  this 
state  of  things  is  due  primarily  to  a  violent  reaction  or  fixa- 
tion of  attention,  resulting  in  its  usual  monoi'deism,  or  'nar- 
rowing of  consciousness.'  For  belief  is  a  motor  attitude 
resting  upon  complexity  of  presentation  and  representation. 
Just  as  soon  as  this  mature  complexity  is  destroyed,  belief 

1  Handbook  of  Psychology,  Feeling  and  Will,  pp.  60  ff.,  and  Chap.  XII. 

1  See  the  section  below  in  this  chapter  (§  7)  in  which  the  main  facts  of 
hypnosis  are  briefly  stated,  and  the  further  references  to  the  theory  of  hypno- 
tism in  §  3  of  the  chapter  on  Volition,  below. 

8  Handbook,  II.,  Chap.  VII. 


IO4  Suggestion 

disappears,  and  all  ideas  '  become  free  and  equal '  in  doing 
their  executive  work.  Each  presentation  streams  out  in 
action  by  suggestion ;  and  stands  itself  fully  in  the  possession 
of  consciousness,  with  none  of  the  pros  and  cons  of  its  usual 
claim  to  be  accepted  as  real,  gaining  also  the  still  greater 
establishment  which  comes  from  the  return  wave  upon  itself 
of  its  own  motor  discharge.  The  question  of  suggestion  be- 
comes then  that  of  the  mechanism  of  attention  in  working 
three  results:  (i)  the  narrowing  of  consciousness  upon  the 
suggested  idea,  (2)  the  consequent  narrowing  of  the  motor 
impulses  to  simpler  lines  of  discharge,  and  (3)  the  consequent 
inhibition  of  the  discriminating  and  selective  attitude  which 
constitutes  belief  in  reality. 

The  truth  of  these  general  statements  is  thoroughly  con- 
firmed by  the  observation  of  children,  in  whom  the  general 
system  of  adjustments,  which  constitute  the  'worlds  of 
reality'  of  us  adults,  are  not  yet  effected.  Little  children 
are  credulous,  in  an  unreflective  sense,  even  to  illusion. 
Tastes,  colours,  sensations  generally,  pains,  pleasures,  may 
be  suggested  to  them,  as  is  shown  by  the  instances  given  in 
later  pages. 

It  is,  however,  to  the  truth  of  the  fundamental  fact  of 
normal  motor  suggestion  found  in  children,  that  I  wish  to 
devote  a  large  part  of  this  chapter;  and  observations  of  re- 
actions clearly  due  to  such  suggestion,  either  under  natural 
conditions  or  by  experiment,  lead  me  to  distinguish  the  varying 
sorts  of  suggestion  mentioned  in  the  following  paragraphs,  in 
what  I  find  to  be  about  the  order  of  their  appearance  in 
child-life. 

§  2.  Physiological  Suggestion 

By  'suggestion*  is  understood  ordinarily  ideal  or  ideo- 
motor  suggestion,  —  the  origination  from  without  of  a  motor 


Physiological  Suggestion  105 

reaction,  by  producing  in  consciousness  the  state  which  is 
ordinarily  antecedent  to  that  reaction;  but  observation  of 
an  infant  for  the  first  month  or  six  weeks  of  its  life  leads  to 
the  conviction  that  its  life  is  mainly  physiological.  The 
vacancy  of  consciousness  as  regards  anything  not  immedi- 
ately given  as  sensation,  principally  pleasure  and  pain,  pre- 
cludes the  possibility  of  ideal  suggestion  as  such.  The  infant 
at  this  age  has  no  ideas  in  the  sense  of  distinct  memory 
images.  Its  conscious  states  are  largely  affective.  Accord- 
ingly, when  the  reactions  which  are  purely  reflex,  and  certain 
random  impulsive  movements,  are  excluded,  we  seem  to  ex- 
haust the  contents  of  its  motor  consciousness. 

Yet  even  at  this  remarkably  early  s  age  H.  was  found  to 
be  in  a  degree  receptive  of  suggestion,  —  suggestion  conveyed 
by  repeated  stimulation  under  uniform  conditions.  In  the 
first  place,  the  suggestions  of  sleep  began  to  tell  upon  her 
before  the  end  of  the  first  month.  Her  nurse  put  her  to  sleep 
by  laying  her  face  down  and  patting  gently  upon  the  end  of 
her  spine.  This  position  itself  soon  became  not  only  sug- 
gestive to  the  child  of  sleep,  but  sometimes  necessary  to  sleep, 
even  when  she  was  laid  across  the  nurse's  lap  in  what  seemed 
to  be  an  uncomfortable  position. 

This  case  illustrates  what  I  mean  by  physiological  sugges- 
tion. It  shows  the  law  of  physiological  habit  as  it  borders 
on  the  conscious.  No  doubt  some  such  effect  would  be 
produced  by  pure  habit  apart  from  consciousness ;  but,  con- 
sciousness being  present,  its  nascent  indefinite  states  may  be 
supposed  to  have  a  quality  of  suggestiveness,  which  works 
to  increase  the  fixedness  of  the  habit.  Yet  the  fact  of  such 
a  colouring  of  consciousness  in  connection  with  the  growth 
of  physiological  habit  is  important  rather  as  a  transition  to 
more  evident  suggestion. 

The  same  kind  of  phenomena  appear  also  in  adult  life. 


io6  Suggestion 

Positions  given  to  the  limbs  of  a  sleeper  lead  to  movements 
ordinarily  associated  with  these  positions.  The  sleeper 
defends  himself,  withdraws  himself  from  cold,  etc.  Chil- 
dren learn  gradually  the  reactions  upon  conditions  of  posi- 
tion, lack  of  support,  etc.,  of  the  body,  necessary  to  keep 
from  falling  out  of  bed,  which  adults  have  so  perfectly.  All 
secondary  automatic  reactions  may  be  classed  here,  the  sen- 
sations coming  from  one  reaction,  as  in  walking,  being  sug- 
gestions to  the  next  movement,  unconsciously  acted  upon. 
The  state  of  consciousness  at  any  stage  in  the  chain  of  move- 
ments, if  present  at  all,  must  be  similar  to  the  baby's  in  the 
case  above,  —  a  mere  internal  glimmering,  whose  reproduc- 
tion, however  brought  about,  reinforces  its  appropriate  re- 
action. 

The  most  we  can  say  of  such  physiological  suggestion  is, 
that  the  conscious  state  is  always  present,  and  that  the 
ordinary  reflexes  may  be  subsequently  abbreviated  and 
modified. 

Professor  Ribot  says  as  much  as  this.  "When  a  physio- 
logical state  has  become  a  state  of  consciousness,  through 
this  very  fact  it  has  acquired  a  particular  character.  .  .  . 
It  has  become  a  new  factor  in  the  psychic  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual —  a  result  that  can  serve  as  a  starting-point  to  some 
new  (either  conscious  or  unconscious)  work."  And  again: 
"Volition  is  a  state  of  consciousness  ...  it  marks  a  series, 
i.e.  the  possibility  of  being  recommenced,  modified,  pre- 
vented. Nothing  similar  exists  in  regard  to  automatic  acts 
that  are  not  accompanied  by  consciousness.  .  .  .  Each  state 
of  consciousness  ...  in  relation  to  the  future  development 
of  the  individual,  is  a  factor  of  the  first  order."  *  Schneider, 

1  Diseases  of  Personality,  pp.  15-16.  Ribot  in  his  text,  however,  notes 
mainly  the  phylogenetic  advantage  of  consciousness  as  memory,  on  which  see 
below,  Chap.  IX.,  §  3,  and  Chap.  X.,  §§  2,  4. 


Physiological  Suggestion  107 

also,  writing  from  the  phylogenetic  point  of  view,  says:  "All 
purely  physiological  movements  serve  a  single  definite  pur- 
pose, are  always  the  same;  psychological  movements,  on 
the  contrary,  have  the  peculiarity  that  they  serve  different 
purposes,  follow  upon  quite  different  stimulations,  and  adapt 
themselves  to  circumstances  by  combination  and  modifica- 
tion. .  .  .  Otherwise  we  would  not  have  any  consciousness, 
for  there  would  be  no  use  for  it.  ...  So  in  connection  with 
every  movement  which  is  accompanied  by  a  phenomenon  of 
consciousness,  we  may  hold,  that  this  phenomenon  of  con- 
sciousness is  really  necessary  (wirklich  nothig  ist)  for  the 
determination  of  the  movement."  *  A  more  positive  pro- 
nouncement on  the  presence  of  consciousness  in  all  reactions 
to  which  the  term  'suggestion'  may  be  applied  is  that  of 
Moll.  He  says:  "There  is  no  suggestion  -without  conscious- 
ness. It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  suggestion  is  made 
through  imitation  or  by  a  command.  ...  I  must  insist  in 
opposition  to  Mendel  that  there  is  consciousness  of  what  is 
suggested,  and  that  this  is  the  main  point  in  the  matter.  A 
suggestion  without  consciousness  is  to  me  inconceivable."  2 

In  hypnotic  experimentation,  the  influence  of  such  sub- 
conscious or  physiological  suggestions  is  now  generally  recog- 
nized under  the  general  doctrine  of  hyperaesthesia  of  the 
senses.  Ochorowicz  calls  the  general  phenomenon  of  sug- 
gestion ideoplasty,*  and  when  no  clear  idea  is  necessary  to 
the  effect,  as  in  my  'physiological'  suggestion,  he  speaks  of 
'physical  ideoplasty.'  He  says:  "We  have  ideoplasty  when- 
ever the  thought  alone  of  any  functional  modification  de- 
termines such  functional  modification  .  .  .  the  thought  of 
yawning  itself  produces  yawning,  etc."  4 

1  Der  thierische  Wille,  p.  53.        J  Hypnotism,  p.  267  (italics  his). 
1  Ochorowicz,  Mental  Suggestion,  p.  25.      (So  the  translator;  'idioplasy' 
is  perhaps  better.)  *  Ibid.  354-5- 


io8  Suggestion 

A  particular  observation  made  upon  my  child  E.  during 
her  second  year  may  serve  to  make  clear  this  first  stage  of 
suggestion.  She  learned  to  go  to  sleep  sucking  her  bottle, 
the  rubber  of  which  was  left  in  her  mouth  while  she  slept. 
Now,  at  any  sound,  touch,  or  other  sudden  stimulation,  such 
as  the  flaring  up  of  the  "light,  she  began  with  more  or  less 
vigour  to  suck  the  bottle,  giving  no  other  sign  of  awaking 
whatever,  and  really  not  awaking,  but  only  passing  from  a 
deeper  sleep,  or  less  consciousness,  to  a  lighter  sleep,  or 
more  consciousness.  Now,  as  I  interpret  it,  the  stimulus, 
arousing  more  brain  process,  heightened  the  sleep  or  dream 
consciousness,  brought  out  the  sensations  in  the  lips  about 
the  rubber,  and  these  sensations  by  physiological  suggestion 
set  up  the  sucking  movements.  These  movements  in  turn 
had  their  habitual  influence  in  sending  the  child  off  into 
deep  sleep  again.  Then,  later,  it  is  probable  that  even  the 
lip  sensations  were  not  necessary;  but  the  increased  dyna- 
mogeny  of  the  increased  sensory  consciousness  simply  poured 
itself  into  the  lip-movement  channels,  since  they  were  asso- 
ciated last  and  always  with  the  conditions  of  sleep. 

Lidbault  was  brought  to  recognize  this  phenomenon  by 
the  possibility  of  suggesting  purely  physical  functions  suc- 
cessfully to  very  young  children.1 

We  may  adopt  a  diagrammatic  representation  of  the  ele- 
ments of  a  motor  reaction  at  this  point  for  convenience,  call- 
ing it  the  'motor  square.'  Figure  IX.  presents  a  square  of 
which  each  corner  represents  a  physiological  process,  as  it 
may  occur  with  or  without  consciousness,  as  follows :  — 

Let  sg= suggestion  (sensory  process);  mp=sea,t  of  motor 
process;  mt= movement  of  muscle;  me = consciousness  of 
movement  (kinaesthetic  process).  The  sides  of  the  square 

1  See  illustrative  cases  given  in  earlier  editions  of  the  work,  pp.  113  f.,  and 
also  in  Ochorowicz,  loc.  cit.,  p.  247  (with  his  context). 


Physiological  Suggestion  109 

are  connections  between  the  seats  of  these  processes.    The 
relation  of  the  elements  of  the  '  motor  square '  to  other  cere- 


FIG.  IX.  — 'MOTOR  SQUARE.'        FIG.  X.  —  PHYSIOLOGICAL  SUGGESTION. 

bral  elements,  and  the  relation  of  this  scheme  to  others  pro- 
posed by  Lichtheim,  Kussmaul,  etc.,  are  spoken  of  later.1 

The  stimulus  sg  (Fig.  X.,  in  which  crosses  at  the  corners 
indicate  nervous  processes  only,  and  circles  indicate  vague 
states  of  consciousness)  starts  the  motor  process  mp;  it  leads 
to  movement,  mt,  which  is  reported  to  consciousness,  me. 
The  line  between  sg  and  me  is  broken,  because  at  this  stage 
in  infancy,  associations  are  only  just  beginning  to  be  formed 
between  a  feeling  of  muscular  movement  and  its  stimulating 
sensation. 

The  cases  of  'physiological suggestion,'  as  now  described,2 
tend,  inasmuch  as  they  involve  elements  of  consciousness,  to 
take  more  definite  form,  as  '  sensori-motor  suggestions,'  to 
which  we  may  now  turn. 

§  3.   Sensori-motor  Suggestion 

These  cases  of  suggestion  may  again  be  best  illustrated 
from  the  phenomena  of  infancy,  before  a  close  definition  is 
attempted.  And  first  we  may  note  some  instances  of  what 
may  be  called  general  suggestions  of  this  sort. 

1  Below,  Chap.  XIII.,  §  3. 

2  Among  confirmatory  observations  sent  me,  those  of  A.  G.  Parrott,  of 
Farmington,  Conn.,  are  varied  and  careful. 


no  Suggestion 

I.  General.  —  Various  Sleep  Suggestions.  —  From  the  first 
month  on,  there  was  a  deepening  of  the  hold  upon  the  child 
H.  of  the  early  method  of  inducing  sleep.  The  nurse,  in 
the  meantime,  added  two  nursery  rhymes.  Thus  position, 
pats,  and  rhyme  sounds  were  the  suggesting  stimuli.  Not 
until  the  third  month,  however,  was  there  any  difference 
noticed  when  the  same  suggestions  came  from  other  persons. 
I  myself  learned,  during  the  fourth  month,  to  put  her  to  sleep, 
and  learned  with  great  difficulty,  though  pursuing  the  nurse's 
method  as  nearly  as  possible.  Here,  therefore,  was  a  sleep 
suggestion  from  the  personality  of  the  nurse,  —  her  peculiar 
voice,  touch,  etc.,  —  of  which  mention  is  made  more  fully 
below.  At  this  time  I  assumed  exclusive  charge  of  putting 
H.  to  sleep,  in  order  to  observe  the  phenomena  more  closely. 
For  a  month  or  six  weeks  I  made  regular  improvement, 
reducing  the  time  required  from  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
to  half  an  hour,  finding  it  easier  at  night  than  at  midday. 
This  indicated  that  darkness  had  already  become  an  addi- 
tional sleep  suggestion,  probably  because  it  shut  out  the 
whole  class  of  sensations  from  sight,  thus  reducing  the  atten- 
tion to  stimulations  which  were  monotonous.1 

In  the  following  month  (sixth),  I  reduced  the  time  re- 
quired, day  or  night,  to  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  on  an 
average.  In  this  way  I  found  it  possible  to  send  her  off  to 
sleep  at  any  hour  of  the  night  that  she  might  wake  and  cry  out. 

1 1  found  by  accident,  in  this  connection,  the  curious  fact  that  a  single  flash 
of  bright  light  would  often  put  H.  immediately  to  sleep  when  all  other  pro- 
cesses were  futile.  In  her  fifth  month  I  despaired  one  evening,  after  nearly  an 
hour's  vain  effort,  and  lighted  the  gas  at  a  brilliant  flash  unintentionally.  She 
closed  her  eyes  by  the  usual  reflex,  and  did  not  open  them  again,  sleeping 
soundly  and  long.  I  afterwards  resorted  to  this  method  on  several  occasions, 
carefully  shielding  her  eyes  from  the  direct  light  rays,  and  it  generally,  but 
not  always,  succeeded.  Shortly  after  reporting  this  in  the  columns  of  Science 
(Feb.  27,  1891),  I  heard  from  a  prominent  psychologist  that  his  wife  could 
confirm  the  observation  from  experience  with  her  own  children. 


Sensori-motor   Suggestion  1 1 1 

I  then  determined  to  omit  the  patting,  and  endeavour  to 
bring  on  sleep  by  singing  only.  The  time  was  at  first 
lengthened,  then  greatly  shortened.  I  now  found  it  pos- 
sible (sixth  to  seventh  month)  to  put  her  to  sleep,  when  she 
waked  in  the  dark,  by  a  simple  refrain  repeated  monoto- 
nously two  or  three  times.  In  the  meantime  she  was  develop- 
ing active  attention,  and  resisted  all  endeavours  of  her  nurse 
and  mother,  who  had  been  separated  from  her  through  ill- 
ness, very  stubbornly  for  hours,  while  she  would  go  to  sleep 
for  myself,  even  when  most  restless,  in  from  fifteen  to  thirty 
minutes.  This  result  required  sometimes  firm  holding  down 
of  the  infant  and  a  determined  expression  of  countenance. 

At  the  end  of  the  year,  this  treatment  being  regular,  she 
would  voluntarily  throw  herself  in  the  old  position  at  a 
single  word  from  me,  and  go  to  sleep,  if  only  patted  uni- 
formly, in  from  four  to  ten  minutes.  This  continued  through 
the  second  year;  even  when  she  was  so  restless  that  her  nurse 
was  unable  to  keep  her  from  gaining  her  feet,  and  when  she 
screamed  if  forced  by  her  to  lie  down.  The  sight  of  myself 
was  sufficient  to  make  her  quiet ;  and  in  five  minutes,  rarely 
more,  she  was  sound  asleep.  I  found  it  of  service,  when  she 
was  teething  and  in  pain,  to  be  able  thus  to  give  her  quiet, 
healthful  sleep. 

This  illustrates,  I  think,  as  conclusively  as  could  be  desired, 
the  passage  of  purely  physiological  over  into  sensory  sugges- 
tion; and  this  is  all  that  I  care,  in  this  connection,  to  em- 
phasize. 

Food  and  Clothing  Suggestion.  —  H.  gave  unmistakable 
signs  of  response  to  the  sight  of  her  food-bottle  as  early,  at 
least,  as  the  fourth  month,  probably  a  fortnight  earlier.  The 
reactions  were  a  kind  of  general  movement  toward  the  bottle, 
especially  with  the  hands,  a  brightening  of  the  face,  and  crow- 
ing sounds.  It  is  curious  that  the  rubber  on  the  bottle  seemed 


H2  Suggestion 

to  be  the  point  of  identification,  the  bottle  being  generally  not 
responded  to  when  the  rubber  was  removed.  This  was  also 
true  of  E.,  to  whom  the  rubber  alone  without  the  bottle  be- 
came a  remarkable  quieting  agent,  as  I  have  already  men- 
tioned. The  sight  of  the  bottle,  also,  was  suggestive  much 
earlier  than  the  touch  of  it  with  her  hands. 

H.  began  to  show  a  vague  sense  of  the  use  of  her  articles 
of  clothing  about  the  fifth  month,  responding  at  the  proper 
time,  when  being  clothed,  by  ducking  her  head,  extending 
her  hand  or  withdrawing  it.  About  this  time  she  also 
showed  signs  of  joy  at  the  appearance  of  her  mittens,  hood, 
and  cloak,  before  going  out. 

II.  Suggestions  of  Personality.  —  It  was  a  poet,  no  doubt, 
who  first  informed  us  that  the  infant  inherits  a  peculiar  sen- 
sibility for  its  mother's  face,  —  a  readiness  to  answer  it  with 
a  smile.  This  is  all  poetic  fancy.  It  is  true  that  the  infant 
does  smile  very  early ;  E.  clearly  smiled  at  me  on  her  seventh 
day  and  at  her  mother  on  the  ninth.  But  it  is  probably  a 
purely  reflex  indication  of  agreeable  organic  sensation.  When 
the  child  does  begin  to  show  partiality  for  mother  or  nurse,  it 
is  because  the  kind  treatment  it  has  already  experienced  in 
connection  with  the  face  has  already  brought  out  the  same 
smile  before  in  this  organic  way;  the  mother's  face,  that  is, 
grows  to  suggest  the  smile.  At  first  it  is  not  the  face  alone, 
but  the  personality,  the  presence,  to  which  the  child  responds ; 
and  of  more  special  suggestion,  the  voice  is  first  effectual, 
then  touch,  as  in  the  case  of  sleep  above,  and  then  sight. 
Such  suggestions  are  among  the  most  important  of  infancy, 
serving  as  elements  in  the  growth  of  the  consciousness  of 
self  and  of  external  reality,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  see 
later  on. 

Delaying  for  the  moment  the  further  analysis  of  this  re- 
markable class  of  suggestions,  the  question  occurs,  are  not 


Sensori-motor  Suggestion  113 

these  so-called  'suggestions'  simply  cases  of  the  association 
of  ideas  ?  I  think  we  are  warranted  in  answering,  '  No ' ; 
for  the  reason  that  it  is  not  an  associated  idea  that  is  brought 
up ;  unless  we  are  prepared  to  enlarge  the  ordinary  concep- 
tion of  association  to  include  phenomena  of  the  vaguest 
psychological  meaning.  The  muscular  movement  is  produced 
without  the  production  of  an  idea  of  that  movement,  largely 
through  native  pathways  of  discharge,  or  by  the  production 
of  organic  conditions,  such  as  sleep,  which  involve  muscular 
conditions.  Can  we  say  that  the  sleep  suggestions  first  bring 
up  an  idea  or  image  of  the  sleep  condition,  or  that  the  bottle 
brings  up  an  idea  of  the  movements  of  grasping,  or  even  of 
the  sweet  taste?  I  think  the  case  is  more  direct.  The 
energy  of  stimulation  passes  over  into  the  motor  reaction 
through  the  medium  of  the  conscious  state;  although  the 
conscious  state  is  undoubtedly  enveloped  in  an  envelope  or 
fringe  of  organic  and  muscular  sensation  which  is  of  marked 
hedonic  quality.  Further,  as  will  appear  clearer  below,  it  is 
not  an  association  plus  a  suggestion,  or  an  association  plus 
an  association,  as  current  atomistic  doctrines  of  association 
would  lead  us  to  expect.  We  cannot  say  that  pleasure  or 
pain  always  intervenes  between  the  present  state  of  con- 
sciousness and  the  motor  reaction,  i.e.  mother's  face,  pleas- 
ure recalled,  expression  of  pleasure,  or  present  bottle,  sweet 
taste,  movements  to  reach.  I  believe  all  this  is  quite  artificial 
and  unnatural.  The  most  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  con- 
scious state  as  a  whole,  with  its  hedonic  colouring,  serves  to 
bring  about  a  modification  of  the  reaction,  whether  it  be  a 
native  one,  or  one  established  by  association  or  habit.1 

The  elements  are  as  before  for  physiological  suggestion, 
except  that  the  reaction  begins  with  a  clearly  conscious 

1  Ochorowicz  describes  the   same  class  of  phenomena  as  'ideorganic 
associations  based  on  habitude,'  Mental  Suggestion,  p.  232. 


H4  Suggestion 

process  at  sg  (Fig.  XI.),  and  the  child  is  getting  associations 
between  sg  and  me. 

The  phenomenon  of  '  personality-suggestion/  to  which  we 
may  now  return,  is  so  important  in  the  growth  of  the  child's 
consciousness  of  himself,  of  his  belief  in  realities  about  him, 
and  of  his  social  life,  that  it  should  be  closely  scrutinized. 
This  is  the  more  important  because  such  an  analysis  has 
never  been  made  upon  the  basis  of  actual  observation  of 
children.  The  treatment  which  follows  is  based  upon  most 


FIG.  XI. — SENSORI-MOTOR  SUGGESTION 

detailed  and  watchful  inspection  of  H.  and  E.,  together 
with  careful  but  less  intimate  observation  of  two  other  young 
children,  one  of  them  a  boy,  with  especial  reference  to  the 
development  of  the  sense  of  their  own  relation  to  the  per- 
sons who  moved  about  them.1 

As  outcome  of  this  kind  of  observation,  and  with  no  inter- 
mixture of  interpretation,  which  may  be  now  left  over,  I  find 
no  less  than  four  phases  of  attitude  involved  in  what  after- 
wards becomes  the  so-called  'social  sense'  in  the  child.  I 
say  'afterwards  becomes,'  because  all  of  them  belong  in  the 
'  projective ' 2  stage  of  the  child's  sense  of  self,  i.e.  they  all 
go  to  furnish  data  which  he  afterwards  appropriates  to  him- 
self as  '  subject.'  These  four  phases  are  indescribably  subtle 

1  Some  observations  on  the  presence  of  something  similar  to  this  class  of 
suggestions  in  animals  have  already  been  given  above,  Chap.  I.,  §  3. 

2  See  above,  Chap.  I.,  §  3. 


Sens ori-mo tor  Suggestion  115 

and  indescribably  intermixed  in  the  subjective  ensemble  of 
the  growing  child.  So  much  so  that  I  shall  not  attempt  in 
all  cases  to  cite  actual  situations  to  justify  each  point :  rather, 
the  view  I  take  rests  upon  innumerable  situations,  and  their 
differences  from  one  another.  Just  as  one  is  utterly  unable 
to  give  examples  of  his  own  phases  of  attitude  expressive  of 
the  nuances  of  meaning  which  the  actions  of  others  bring 
out  of  him,  so  entirely  a  matter  of  insight  and  intuition 
must  his  sense  be  of  what  is  in  the  child's  mind  in  the  various 
social  situations  which  confront  him  from  day  to  day.  Never- 
theless, the  drift  of  the  infant's  development  is  very  clear  to 
the  sympathetic  observer ;  and  I  think  the  instances  which  I 
cite  will  be  sufficient  to  excite  in  all  those  familiar  with  little 
children  a  sense  of  the  truth  of  the  general  portrayal. 

i.  The  first  thing  in  the  environment  of  the  infant  which 
it  notes  —  apart  from  the  ordinary  fixed  and  static  stimula- 
tions, such  as  sounds,  lights,  etc.  —  are  movements.  The 
first  attempts  of  the  infant  at  anything  like  steady  attention 
are  directed  to  moving  things  —  a  swaying  curtain,  a  moving 
light,  a  stroking  touch,  etc.  And  further  than  this,  the 
moving  things  soon  become  more  than  objects  of  curiosity; 
these  things  are  just  the  things  that  affect  him  for  pleasure 
or  pain.  It  is  movement  that  brings  him  his  food,  movement 
that  regulates  the  stages  of  his  bath,  movement  that  dresses 
him  comfortably,  movement  that  sings  to  him  and  rocks  him 
to  sleep.  In  that  complex  of  sensations,  the  nurse,  the  fea- 
ture of  moment  to  him,  of  immediate  satisfaction,  or  redemp- 
tion from  pain,  is  this:  movements  come  to  succour  him. 
Change  in  his  bodily  feeling  is  the  vital  requirement  of  his 
life,  for  by  it  the  rhythm  of  his  vegetative  existence  is  se- 
cured; and  these  changes  are  accompanied  and  secured 
always  in  the  moving  presence  of  the  one  he  sees  and  feels 
about  him.  This,  I  take  it,  is  the  first  and  great  association 


1 1 6  Suggestion 

of  the  infant  with  other  persons,  the  earliest  reflection  in  his 
consciousness  of  the  world  of  personalities  about  him.  At 
this  stage  his  'personality-suggestion'  is  this  pain-movement- 
pleasure  psychosis:  to  this  he  reacts  with  a  smile,  and  a 
crow,  and  a  kick.1 

Many  facts  tend  to  bear  us  out  in  this  position.  My 
child  cried  when  I  handled  her  in  the  dark,  although  I 
imitated  the  nurse's  movements  as  closely  as  possible.  She 
tolerated  a  strange  presence  as  long  as  it  remained  quietly 
in  its  place :  but  let  it  move,  and  especially  let  it  usurp  any 
of  the  pieces  of  movement-business  of  the  nurse  or  mother, 
and  her  protests  were  emphatic.  The  movements  tended  to 
bring  the  strange  elements  of  a  new  face  into  the  vital  asso- 
ciation, pain-movement-pleasure,  and  so  to  disturb  its 
familiar  course :  this  constituted  it  a  strange  '  personality.' 

It  is  astonishing,  also,  what  new  accidental  elements  may 
become  parts  of  this  association.  Part  of  a  movement,  a 
gesture,  a  peculiar  habit  of  the  nurse,  may  become  sufficient 
to  give  assurance  of  the  welcome  presence  and  the  pleasures 
which  the  presence  brings.  Two  notes  of  my  song  in  the 
night  stood  for  my  presence  to  H.,  and  no  song  from  any 
one  else  could  replace  it.  A  lighted  match  stopped  the  cry- 
ing of  E.  for  food,2  although  it  was  but  a  signal  for  a  process 
of  food-preparation  lasting  several  minutes:  and  a  simple 
light  never  stopped  her  crying  under  any  other  circumstances. 
So  with  this  first  start  in  the  sense  of  personality  we  find  also 
reasons  for  the  differences  of  different  personalities ;  but  this 
constitutes  the  next  phase. 

2.   It  is  evident  that  the  sense  of  another's  presence  thus 

1  Undoubtedly  this  association  gets  some  of  its  value  from  the  other  similar 
one  in  which  the  movements  are  the  infant's  own.     It  is  by  movement  that 
he  gets  rid  of  pain  and  secures  pleasure. 

2  Observations  made  in  her  fourteenth  week. 


Sensori-motor  Suggestion  117 

felt  in  the  infant's  consciousness  rests,  as  all  associations 
rest,  upon  regularity  or  repetition:  his  sense  of  expectancy 
is  aroused  whenever  the  chain  of  events  is  started.  And  this 
is  embodied  at  this  stage  largely  in  two  indications :  the  face 
and  the  voice.1  But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this  is  a  very  meagre 
sense  of  personality;  a  moving  machine  which  brought  pain 
and  alleviated  suffering  would  serve  as  well.  So  the  child 
begins  to  learn  in  addition  the  fact  that  persons  are  in  a 
measure  individual  in  their  treatment  of  him,  and  hence  that 
personality  has  elements  of  uncertainty  or  irregularity  about 
it.  This  growing  sense  is  very  clear  to  one  who  watches  an 
infant  in  its  second  half-year.  Sometimes  its  mother  gives  a 
biscuit,  but  sometimes  she  does  not.  Sometimes  the  father 
smiles  and  tosses  the  child;  sometimes  he  does  not.  And 
the  child  looks  for  signs  of  these  varying  moods  and  methods 
of  treatment.  Its  new  pains  of  disappointment  arise  directly 
on  the  basis  of  that  former  sense  of  regular  personal  presence 
upon  which  its  expectancy  went  forth. 

This  new  element  of  the  child's  'social  sense'  becomes,  at 
one  period  of  its  development,  quite  the  controlling  element. 
Its  action  in  the  presence  of  the  persons  of  the  household 
becomes  hesitating  and  watchful.  Especially  does  it  watch 
the  face  for  any  expressive  indications  of  what  treatment  is 
to  be  expected ;  for  facial  expression  is  now  the  most  regular 
as  well  as  the  most  delicate  indication.  It  is  unable  to  antici- 
pate the  treatment  in  detail,  and  it  has  not  of  course  learned 
any  principles  of  interpretation  of  the  conduct  of  mother  or 
father  lying  deeper  than  the  details.  It  is  just  here,  I  think, 
that  imitation  arises,  as  will  appear  later,2  and  becomes  so 

1  I  have  special  observations  on  H.'s  responses  to  changes  in  facial  expres- 
sion up  to  the  age  of  twenty  months.  Her  changes  of  attitude  indicated  most 
subtle  sensibility  to  these  differences  —  and  normal  children  all  do,  I  think. 
Animals  show  the  same  remarkable  'projective  intuition,'  if  the  expression  be 
allowed.  l  Below,  Chap.  XI.,  §  3. 


n8  Suggestion 

important  in  the  child's  life.  This  is  imitation's  opportunity. 
The  infant  waits  to  see  how  others  act,  because  its  own  weal 
and  woe  depends  upon  this  'how';  and  inasmuch  as  it 
knows  not  what  to  anticipate,  its  mind  is  open  to  every  sug- 
gestion of  movement.  Its  attention  dwells  upon  details,  and 
by  the  regular  principle  of  motor  reaction  which  imitation 
expresses,  it  acts  these  suggestions  out. 

All  through  the  child's  second  year,  and  longer,  his  sense 
of  the  persons  around  him  is  in  this  stage.  The  incessant 
'why?'  with  which  he  greets  any  action  affecting  him,  or 
any  information  given  him,  is  witness  to  the  simple  puzzle 
of  the  apparent  capriciousness  of  persons.  Of  course  he 
cannot  understand  'why' :  so  the  simple  fact  to  him  is  that 
mamma  will  or  won't,  he  knows  not  beforehand  which. 

But  in  all  this  period  there  is  germinating  in  his  conscious- 
ness —  and  this  very  uncertainty  is  an  important  element  of 
it  —  the  seed  of  a  far-reaching  thought.  His  sense  of  per- 
sons —  moving,  pleasure-or-pain-giving,  uncertain  but  self- 
directing,  persons  —  is  now  to  become  a  sense  of  agency,  of 
power,  which  is  yet  not  the  power  of  the  regular-moving 
door  on  its  hinges  or  the  rhythmic  swinging  of  the  pendulum 
of  the  clock.  The  sense  of  personal  actuation,  'projective 
agency,'  is  now  forming,  and  it  again  is  potent  for  still  further 
development  of  the  social  consciousness.  For  he  begins  to 
grow  capricious  himself,  and  to  feel  that  he  can  be  so  when- 
ever he  likes.  Suggestion  begins  to  lose  the  regularity  of  its 
working;  or  to  become  negative  and  'contrary'  in  its  effects. 
At  this  period  it  is  that  obedience  begins  to  grow  hard,  and 
its  meaning  begins  to  dawn  upon  the  child  as  the  great 
reality.  It  means  the  subjection  of  his  own  agency,  his  own 
liberty  to  be  capricious,  to  the  agency  and  liberty  of  some 
one  else. 

3.  With  all  this,  the  child's  distinction  between  and  among 


Sensori-motor  Suggestion  119 

the  persons  who  constantly  come  into  contact  with  him 
grows  on  apace,  in  spite  of  the  element  of  irregularity  of  the 
general  fact  of  personality.  As  before  he  learned  the  differ- 
ence between  one  presence  and  another,  —  a  difference 
which  was  overcome  in  the  discovery  that  every  presence 
is  of  irregular  value;  so  now  he  learns  the  difference 
between  one  character  and  another  —  the  regularity  of  per- 
sonal agency,  as  opposed  to  the  regularity  of  mere  associa- 
tions of  movement  and  to  the  irregularity  of  the  apparently 
capricious.  Every  character  is  more  or  less  regular  in  its 
irregularity.  It  has  its  tastes  and  modes  of  action,  its  tem- 
perament and  type  of  command.  This  the  child  learns  late 
in  the  second  year  and  thereafter.  He  behaves  differently 
when  the  father  is  in  the  room.  He  is  quick  to  obey  one 
person,  slow  to  obey  another.  He  cries  aloud,  pulls  his 
companions,  and  behaves  reprehensibly  generally,  when  no 
adult  is  present  but  his  nurse,  who  has  no  authority  to 
punish  him.  This  stage  in  his  'knowledge  of  man'  leads  to 
those  active  differences  of  conduct  on  his  part  which  make 
imitation,  and  the  discipline  of  obedience,  a  sword  with  two 
edges,  one  for  good  and  one  for  evil.  This  general  apprecia- 
tion of  character,  together  with  the  full-blown  social  feeling, 
which  constitutes  the  fourth  phase  in  my  division,  may  be 
left  for  later  discussion,  as  well  as  the  part  played  by  this 
kind  of  suggestion  in  the  genesis  of  the  moral  sense.1 

To  sum  up:  'personality-suggestion'  is  the  general  term 
for  the  stimulations  to  activity  which  the  child  gets  from 
persons.  It  develops  through  three  or  four  roughly  dis- 
tinguished '  stages,'  all  of  which  illustrate  what  I  have  called 
his  'projective'  sense  of  personality;  namely,  i.  a  bare  dis- 
tinction, on  the  ground  of  peculiar  pain-movement-pleasure 
complexes,  0}  persons  from  things;  2.  a  sense  of  the  irregu- 
1  Below,  Chap.  XI.,  §  3. 


1 20  Suggestion 

larity  or  capriciousness  of  the  behaviour  of  these  persons, 
which  is  the  germ  of  his  sense  0}  agency,  as  opposed  to  the 
regular  causal  series  of  conditions  which  things  go  through; 
3.  his  distinction,  vaguely  felt  but  reacted  to  with  great 
exactness,  between  the  characteristic  modes  of  behaviour  or 
personal  character  of  different  persons;  4.  after  his  sense  of 
his  own  subject-agency  arises  by  a  process  of  imitation,  he 
gets  what  is  really  social  feeling:  the  sense  of  others  as 
'ejective,'  that  is,  as  like  and  equal  to  himself.1 

III.  Deliberative  Suggestion.  —  By  '  deliberative  sugges- 
tion' I  mean  a  state  of  mind  in  which  co-ordinate  sense-stimuli 
meet,  confront,  oppose,  further,  one  another.  Yet  I  do  not 
mean  'deliberation'  in  the  full-blown  volitional  sense,  but 
suggestion  that  appears  deliberative,  while  still  inside  the  re- 
active consciousness  and  still  representing  a  single  reaction 
upon  a  single  state  of  consciousness.  In  real  deliberation, 
as  appears  below,  there  are  two  or  more  pictured  alternatives, 
upon  the  conscious  co-ordination  of  which  action  follows. 
But  here  the  different  elements  are  ingredients  in  a  single 
sensory  complex,  —  one  suggestion,  —  and  the  motor  re- 
action waits  upon  the  issue  of  the  whole.  The  competition 
of  processes  is  probably  in  large  measure  subcortical.  So 
the  state  is  still  to  be  classed  as  sensori-motor,  not  ideo-motor, 
since  it  does  not  require  intelligent  memory  and  representa- 
tion. The  last  three  months  of  the  child's  first  year  are,  I 

1  The  reader  may  notice  in  this  connection  the  section  below  on  '  bashful- 
ness,'  which  is  found  to  be  a  native  organic  response  to  the  presence  of  per- 
sons, considered  as  '  projects '  of  a  personal  kind.  It  is  curious  to  note  that 
besides  general  gregariousness  which  many  animals  show  in  common,  they 
have  in  many  instances  special  sense  indications  of  the  presence  of  creatures  of 
their  own  kind  or  of  other  kinds.  Dogs  and  cats  each  recognize  both  dogs  and 
cats  by  smell.  Horses  seem  to  be  guided  by  sight.  Fowls  are  notoriously 
blind  to  shapes  of  fowls,  but  depend  on  the  cries  which  they  hear  of  their  kind 
or  their  young.  Experiments  seem  to  show  that  many  of  these  responses 
are  probably  not  congenital.  (See  Morgan,  Habit  and  Instinct.) 


Sensori-motor   Suggestion  121 

think,  clearly  given  over  to  this  kind  of  consciousness.  Motor 
stimulations  have  multiplied,  the  emotional  life  is  budding 
forth  in  a  variety  of  promising  traits,  the  material  of  con- 
scious character  is  present ;  but  the  '  ribs '  of  mental  structure 
may  still  be  seen  through,  response  answering  to  appeal  in  a 
complex  but  yet  mechanical  way.  The  child  lacks  self-con- 
sciousness, self -decision,  self  in  any  developed  form. 

As  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean,  I  may  record  the  follow- 
ing case  of  deliberative  suggestion  from  H.'s  thirteenth 
month :  it  was  more  instructive  to  me  than  whole  books 
would  be  on  the  theory  of  the  conflict  of  impulses.  When 
about  eight  months  old,  H.  formed  the  peculiar  habit  of 
suddenly  scratching  the  face  of  her  nurse  or  mother  with  her 
nails.  It  became  fixed  in  her  memory,  probably  because  of 
the  unusual  facial  expression  of  pain,  reproof,  etc.,  which 
followed  it,  until  the  close  proximity  of  any  one's  face  was 
sufficient  suggestion  to  her  to  give  it  a  violent  scratch.  In 
order  to  break  up  this  habit,  I  began  to  punish  her  by  taking 
at  once  the  hand  with  which  she  scratched  and  'snapping' 
her  fingers  with  my  own  first  finger  hard  enough  to  be  pain- 
ful. For  about  four  weeks  this  seemed  to  have  no  effect, 
probably  because  I  only  saw  her  a  small  part  of  the  time, 
and  only  then  did  she  suffer  the  punishment.  But  I  then 
observed,  and  those  who  were  with  her  most  reported,  that 
she  only  scratched  once  at  a  time,  and  grew  very  solemn  and 
quiet  for  some  moments  afterwards,  as  if  thinking  deeply; 
and  soon  after  this  climax  was  reached  she  would  scratch 
once  impulsively,  be  punished,  and  weep  profusely,  then 
become  as  grave  as  a  deacon,  looking  me  in  the  face. 
I  would  then  deliberately  put  my  cheek  very  close  to 
her,  and  she  would  sit  gazing  at  it  in  '  deep  thought '  for  two 
or  even  three  minutes,  hardly  moving  a  muscle  the  whole 
time,  and  then  either  suddenly  scratch  my  face  and  be 


1 2  2  Suggestion 

punished  again,  or  turn  to  something  (noise,  object,  watch- 
chain,  etc.)  which  I  was  careful  enough  to  provide  in  order 
to  aid  her  by  drawing  off  the  attention.  Having  scratched, 
she  began  to  cry,  in  anticipation  of  the  punishment.  Gradu- 
ally the  scratching  became  more  rare.  She  seldom  yielded  to 
the  temptation  after  being  punished,  and  so  the  habit  entirely 
disappeared.  I  may  add  that  her  mother  and  myself  en- 
deavoured to  induce  a  different  reaction  by  taking  the  child's 
other  hand  and  with  it  stroking  the  face  which  she  had 
scratched.  This  movement  in  time  replaced  the  other  com- 
pletely, and  the  soft  stroking  became  one  of  her  most  spon- 
taneous expressions  of  affection.1 

Now  the  first  act  of  scratching  was  probably  accidental, 
one  of  the  spontaneous  reactions  or  physiological  suggestions 
so  common  with  an  infant's  hands;  it  passed,  by  reason  of 
its  peculiar  associations,  into  a  sensori-motor  reaction  when- 
ever the  presence  of  a  face  acted  as  suggestion,  —  so  far  a 
strong  direct  stimulus  to  the  motor  centres.  Then  came  the 
pain  of  punishment,  —  a  stimulus  to  the  inhibition  on  the 
next  occasion,  not  by  exciting  a  clear  memory,  but  by  work- 
ing itself  directly  into  the  suggesting  psychosis,  and  thus 
reducing  the  motor  tendency.  For  a  time  the  tendency  re- 
mained strong  enough,  however,  to  cause  the  reaction ;  then 
there  followed  an  apparent  balance  between  the  two,  and 
finally  the  pain  element  predominated  in  the  suggestion,  and 
the  reaction  was  permanently  inhibited.  The  stroking  re- 
action gained  all  the  strength  of  violent  and  repeated  associa- 
tion with  the  elements  of  this  mental  conflict,  and  was  thus 
soon  fixed  and  permanent. 

Taking  this  as  a  typical  case  of  'deliberative  suggestion,' 
—  and  I  could  instance  many  others  from  H.'s  life  history 

1  A  somewhat  similar  action  by  a  boy  of  nine  months  has  been  reported 
to  me  by  Rev.  C.  H.  Huestis  of  Barrington,  Nova  Scotia. 


Ideo-motor  Suggestion  123 

and  from  E.'s,  —  two  inferences  may  be  brought  out  in 
passing :  there  is  nothing  here  that  requires  volition,  meaning 
by  'volition'  a  new  influence  of  any  kind,  —  active  con- 
sciousness; if  we  do  call  it  so,  we  simply  apply  a  different 
term  to  phenomena  which  in  their  simplicity  we  call  by 
other  names.  And,  second,  suggestion  is  as  original  a  motor 
stimulus  as  pleasure  and  pain.  Here  they  are  in  direct  con- 
flict. Can  we  say  that  H.  balanced  the  pleasure  of  scratch- 
ing and  the  pain  of  punishment,  and  decided  the  case  on 
this  egoistic  basis?  What  pleasure  did  the  scratching  have 
more  than  any  other  muscular  exercise?  It  was  simply  a 
sensori-motor  habit  which  the  pain  inhibition  tended  to 
break  up. 

So  also,  apart  from  pathological  aboulia,  which  is  described 
later  on,  we  find  a  corresponding  condition  in  adult  life.  As 
I  have  said  elsewhere,  "there  is  a  state  of  conflict  and  hin- 
drance among  presentations  which  is  mechanical  in  its 
issue,  ...  so  states  of  vexation,  divided  counsel,  conflict- 
ing impulse,  and  hasty  decision  against  one's  desire  for 
deliberate  choice.  We  often  find  ourselves  drawn  violently 
apart,  precipitated  through  a  whirl  of  suggested  courses  into 
a  course  which  we  feel  unwilling  to  acknowledge  as  our 
own."  *  Many  of  the  conditions  of  deliberation  are  there, 
but  not  the  fact  of  it. 

§  4.  Ideo-motor  Suggestion 

By  ideo-motor  suggestion  I  mean  the  condition  in  which 
the  stimulus  is  a  clearly  pictured  idea,  a  presentation  or 
object  with  all  its  'meaning,'  or  a  revived  image  of  memory 
or  imagination. 

1  Handbook,  II.,  p.  299.  This  kind  of  complex  suggestion,  however,  un- 
doubtedly serves  to  give  a  ready  organic  basis  for  the  earlier  and  more  obscure 
acts  of  volition,  which  are  described  later  on  (Chap.  XIII.,  §  4). 


124  Suggestion 

Imitation}-  —  For  a  long  period  after  the  child  has  learned 
to  use  all  his  senses,  and  after  his  memory  is  well  developed, 
he  lacks  conscious  imitation  entirely.  I  have  been  quite 
unable  with  my  children  to  confirm  the  results  of  Preyer, 
who  attributes  imitation  to  his  child  at  the  age  of  three  to 
four  months. 

In  support  of  the  assertion  that  imitation  is  rather  late 
in  its  rise,  the  following  experiences  may  be  reported.  As  a 
necessary  caution,  the  rule  was  made  that  no  single  perform- 
ance should  be  considered  real  imitation  unless  it  could  be 
brought  out  again  under  similar  circumstances.  This  rule 
is  necessary,  I  think,  merely  for  caution,  since  the  '  copy '  set 
for  imitation  is  likely  to  be  some  simple  movement  of  lips, 
hands,  etc.,  which  the  child  has  made  himself  before,  and  is 
likely  to  make  again.  It  is  possible  also  from  the  mere 
fact  of  dynamogeny  that  the  motor  discharge  in  shedding 
itself  outward  would  tend  in  a  general  way  to  find  its  most 
permeable  native  pathway  toward  the  muscles  which  repeat 
the  copy,  since  the  movements  are  natural  and  easy.  At 
any  rate,  such  cases,  if  they  exist,  shade  up  gradually  into 
conscious  imitations.2 

It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  cases  of  imitation  recorded 
as  happening  as  early  as  the  third  month  are  merely  coinci- 
dences. For  example,  I  recorded  an  apparent  imitation  by 
H.,  of  closing  the  hand,  as  late  as  May  22  (beginning  of  the 
ninth  month),  but  afterwards  I  wrote,  "  experiment  not  con- 
firmed with  repeated  trials  running  through  four  succeed- 
ing days."  H.'s  first  clear  imitation  was  on  May  24,  in 
knocking  a  bunch  of  keys  against  a  vase,  as  she  saw  me  do 

1  In  this  chapter  the  word  'imitation'  is  used  to  denote  'conscious'  social 
imitation  —  its  usual  popular  sense. 

2  See  the  remarks  on  the  question  of  'instinctive  imitation,'  below,  Chap. 
XII.,  §  2. 


Ideo-motor   Suggestion  125 

it,  in  order  to  produce  the  bell-like  sound.  This  she  re- 
peated over  and  over  again,  and  tried  to  reproduce  it  a  week 
later,  when,  from  lapse  of  time,  she  had  partly  forgotten  how 
to  use  the  keys.  But  on  the  same  day,  May  24,  other  efforts 
to  bring  out  imitation  failed  signally,  i.e.  with  more  or  less 
articulate  sounds,  movements  of  the  lips  (Preyer's  experi- 
ments), and  opening  and  closing  of  the  hands.  Ten  days 
later,  however,  she  imitated  closing  the  hand  on  three  dif- 
ferent occasions.  And  a  week  afterward  she  imitated  move- 
ments of  the  lips  and  certain  sounds,  as  pa,  ma,  etc.1  From 
this  time  forward  the  phenomenon  seemed  extended  to  a 
very  wide  range  of  activities,  and  began  to  assume  the  im- 
mense importance  which  it  always  comes  to  have  in  the  life 
of  the  young  child. 

When  the  imitative  impulse  does  come,  it  comes  in  earnest. 
For  many  months  after  its  rise  it  may  be  called,  perhaps,  the 
controlling  impulse,  apart  from  the  ordinary  life  processes. 
As  a  phenomenon,  it  is  too  familiar  to  need  description.  Its 
importance  in  the  growth  of  the  child's  mind  is  largely  in 
connection  with  the  development  of  language  and  of  volun- 
tary movement  generally. 

The  phenomena  may  be  divided  into  two  general  classes, 
called  simple  imitation  and  persistent  imitation.2  By  'sim- 

1  The  majority  of  recorded  observations  agree  in  making  vocal  imitations 
later  than  visual-movement  imitations.     Egger,  loc.  cit.,  p.  8 ;   Tracy,  Psy- 
chology of  Childhood,  p.  57  (for  citations);    Stevenson,  Science,  March  3, 
1893.     The  first  vocal  imitation  of  my  other  child,  E.,  was  observed  in  her 
eleventh  month,  when  she  tried  to  say  'tick,'  in  reference  to  the  clock,  after 
her  mother,  together  with  ' ps'  for  'pussy,'  and  ' po'  for  'pop.' 

2  This  is  akin  to  Preyer's  distinction  between  'spontaneous'  and  'de- 
liberate' imitation.     He  is  wrong  in  making  both  classes  voluntary.     The 
contrary  is  proved  for  spontaneous  imitation  by  the  fact  that  many  elements 
of  facial  expression  are  never  acquired  by  blind  children.     We  could  hardly 
say  that  facial  expression  was  a  voluntary  acquisition,  however  gradually 
it  may  have  been  acquired.     See  Preyer,  Senses  and  Will,  p.  293. 


126  Suggestion 

pie '  imitations  reactions  are  characterized,  in  which  the 
movement  does  not  imitate  well,  but  is  the  best  the  child 
can  do.  He  does  not  try  to  improve  by  making  a  second 
attempt.  This  is  evidently  a  case  of  simple  sensori-motor 
suggestion,  and  is  peculiar  psychologically  only  because  of 
the  more  or  less  remote  approximation  the  reaction  has  to 
the  model  that  the  child  copies. 

The  reaction  at  which  imitative  suggestion  aims  is  one 
which  will  reproduce  the  stimulating  impression,  and  so  tend 
to  perpetuate  itself.  When  a  child  strikes  the  combina- 
tion required,  he  is  never  tired  working  it.  H.  found  end- 
less delight  in  putting  the  rubber  on  a  pencil  and  off  again, 
each  act  being  a  new  stimulus  to  the  eye.  This  is  specially 
noticeable  in  children's  early  efforts  at  speech.  They  react 
all  wrong  when  they  first  attack  a  new  word,  but  gradually  get 
it  moderately  well,  and  then  sound  it  over  and  over  in  endless 
monotony.  The  essential  thing,  then,  in  imitation,  over  and 
above  simple  ideo-motor  suggestion,  is  that  the  stimulus  starts 
a  motor  process  which  tends  to  reproduce  the  stimulus  and, 
through  it,  the  motor  process  again.  From  the  physiological 
side  we  have  a  circular  activity  —  sensor,  motor;  sensor, 
motor :  and  from  the  psychological  side  we  have  a  similar  circle 
—  reality,  image,  movement ;  reality,  image,  movement,  etc. 

The  square  to  the  left  (Fig.  XII.)  is  the  first  act  of  imita- 
tion; the  movement  (mf)  now  stimulates  (dotted  line  a)  the 
eye  again  (sgf),  giving  the  second  square,  which  by  its  move- 
ment (mt'}  furnishes  yet  another  stimulus  (dotted  line  a'); 
and  so  on. 

By  'persistent  imitation'  is  meant  the  child's  effort,  by 
repetition,  to  improve  his  imitations.  Its  extreme  impor- 
tance justifies  its  separate  discussion  in  a  later  place.1 

1  Chap.  XIII.,  §  2.  The  general  discussion  of  the  position  of  imitation 
in  the  mental  life,  especially  its  phylogenetic  value,  is  reserved  for  later 
chapters  (Chaps.  IX.-XIIL). 


Ideo-motor  Suggestion  127 

Surveying  the  ground  that  we  have  gone  over  so  far  in 
this  chapter,  the  progress  of  suggestion  may  be  seen  by  the 
following  brief  definitions :  — 

i.  Physiological  suggestion  is  the  tendency  of  a  reflex  or 
secondary  automatic  process  to  get  itself  associated  with 
and  influenced  by  stimulating  processes  of  a  physiological 


FIG.  XII.  —  IMITATION 

and  vaguely  sensory  sort.  Perhaps  the  plainest  case  of  it, 
on  a  large  scale  in  animal  life,  is  seen  in  the  decay  of  in- 
stincts when  no  longer  suited  to  the  creature's  needs  and 
environment. 

2.  Sensori-motor  and  ideo-motor  suggestion  is  the  tendency 
of  all  nervous  reactions  to  adapt  themselves  to  new  stimula- 
tions, both  sensory  and  ideal,  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  more 
ready  for  the  repetition  or  continuance  of  these  stimulations. 

3.  Deliberative  suggestion  is  the  tendency  of  different  com- 
peting sensory  processes  to  merge  in  a  single  conscious  state 
with  a  single  motor  reaction,  illustrating  the  principles  of 
nervous  summation  and  arrest. 

4.  Imitative  suggestion  is  the  tendency  of  a  sensory  or 
ideal  process  to  maintain  itself  by  such  an  adaptation  of  its 
discharges  that  they  reinstate  in  turn  new  stimulations  of  the 
same  kind. 

Whether  any  simpler  formulation  of  these  partial  state- 
ments may  be  reached,  is  a  question  which  may  be  delayed 


128  Suggestion 

until  we  have  looked  more  closely  at  certain  other  instances 
of  suggestion,  which  have  not  been  described  before,  and  at 
the  conditions  of  nervous  adaptation  in  general.1 

§  5.  Subconscious  Adult  Suggestion2 

There  are  certain  phenomena  of  a  rather  striking  kind 
coming  under  this  head  whose  classification  is  so  evident 
that  discussion  of  the  general  psychological  principles  which 
they  involve  is  not  necessary.  The  kind  of  fact  which  I  have 
in  view  may  be  illustrated  with  sufficient  clearness  merely 
by  the  recital  of  the  following  observations. 

Tune-suggestion.  —  Professor  Ladd  has  pointed  out  in  de- 
tail —  what  has  for  a  long  time  been  taken  for  granted  — 
that  dream  states  are  largely  indebted  for  their  visual  ele- 
ments, what  we  see  in  our  dreams,  to  accidental  lines,  patches, 
etc.,  in  the  field  of  vision,  when  the  eyes  are  shut,  due  to  the 
distended  blood  vessels  of  the  cornea  and  lids,  to  changes  in 
the  external  illumination,  to  the  presence  of  dust  particles 
of  different  configuration,  etc.3  The  other  senses  also  un- 
doubtedly contribute  to  the  texture  of  our  dreams  by  equally 
subconscious  suggestions.  And  there  is  no  doubt,  further, 
that  our  waking  life  is  constantly  influenced  by  equally 
trivial  stimulations. 

I  have  tested  in  detail,  for  example,  the  conditions  of  the 
rise  of  so-called  '  internal  tunes '  —  we  speak  of  '  tunes  in  our 
heads'  or  'in  our  ears' — and  find  certain  suggestive  in- 
fluences which  in  most  cases  cause  these  tunes  to  rise  and 

1  See  Chap.  VII.  on  'The  Theory  of  Development,'  and  Chap.  IX.  on 
'Organic  Imitation.' 

2  Mr.  A.  G.  Parrott  has  sent  to  me  confirmation  by  himself  of  many  of 
the  observations  of  this  section. 

8  Ladd,  'Psychology  of  Visual  Dreams,'  in  Mind,  N.  S.,  Vol.  I.  (1892), 
p.  299. 


Subconscious   Adult   Suggestion  129 

take  their  course.  Often,  when  a  tune  springs  up  'in  my 
head,'  the  same  tune  has  been  lately  sung  or  whistled  in  my 
hearing,  though  quite  unconsciously  to  myself.  Often  the 
tunes  are  those  heard  in  church  the  previous  day  or  earlier. 
Such  a  tune  I  am  entirely  unable  to  recall  voluntarily:  yet 
when  it  comes  into  my  mind's  ear,  so  to  speak,  I  readily 
recognize  it  as  belonging  to  an  earlier  day's  experience. 
Other  cases  show  various  accidental  suggestions,  such  as  the 
tune  'Mozart'  suggested  by  the  composer's  name,  the  tune 
'Gentle  Annie'  suggested  by  the  name  Annie,  etc.  In  all 
these  cases  it  is  only  after  the  tune  has  taken  possession  of 
consciousness,  and  after  much  seeking,  that  the  suggesting 
influence  is  discovered. 

Closer  analysis  reveals  the  following  facts.  The  '  time '  of 
such  internal  tunes  is  usually  dictated  by  some  rhythmical 
subconscious  occurrence.  After  hearty  meals  it  is  always 
the  time  of  the  heart-beat,  unless  there  be  'in  the  air'  some 
more  impressive  stimulus;  as,  for  example,  when  on  ship- 
board, the  beat  is  with  me  invariably  that  of  the  engine 
throbs.  When  walking  it  is  the  rhythm  of  the  foot-fall.  On 
one  occasion  a  knock  of  four  beats  on  the  door  started  the 
Marseillaise  in  my  ear :  following  up  this  clue,  I  found  that 
at  any  time,  different  divisions  of  musical  time  being  struck 
on  the  table  at  will  by  another  person,  tunes  would  spring 
up  and  run  on,  getting  their  cue  from  the  measures  sug- 
gested. Further,  when  a  tune  dies  away,  its  last  notes  often 
suggest,  some  time  after,  another  having  a  similar  move- 
ment —  just  as  we  pass  from  one  tune  to  another  in  a  'med- 
ley.' It  may  also  be  noted  that  in  my  case  the  tune  memories 
are  auditive:  they  run  in  my  head  when  I  have  no  words 
for  them  and  have  never  sung  them  —  an  experience  which 
is  consistent  with  the  fact  that  these  'internal  tunes'  arise  in 
childhood  before  the  faculty  of  speech.  They  also  have 


1 30  Suggestion 

distinct  pitch.  For  example,  on  April  9,  1892,  I  found  a 
tune  'in  my  head'  which  was  perfectly  familiar,  but  for 
which  I  could  find  no  words.  Tested  on  the  piano,  the 
pitch  was  /-sharp  and  the  time  was  my  heart-beat.  I  finally, 
after  much  effort,  got  the  unworthy  words,  'Wait  till  the 
clouds  roll  by,'  by  humming  the  tune  over  repeatedly.  The 
pitch  is  determined,  probably,  by  the  accidental  condition  of 
the  auditory  centre  as  respects  pitch-readiness,  or  by  the  pitch- 
colouring  of  the  external  sound  which  serves  as  stimulus  to 
the  tune. 

Dreams  as  Emotion  Stimulus.  —  Another  important  realm 
of  suggestion,  not  hitherto  explored,  is  seen  in  the  influence 
of  dreams  on  the  waking  life.  Dreams  react  to  deepen 
waking  impressions,  and  to  strengthen  the  hold  of  dominant 
presentations  and  impulses.  This  fact  seems  to  have  its 
primary  application  to  emotion.  We  cannot  tell  how  much 
of  the  active  momentum  of  our  waking  life  we  owe  to  dream 
stimulation.  The  following  case  of  fact,  in  the  life  of  my 
little  girl  H.,  indicates  that  such  a  stimulus  may  be  of  enor- 
mous importance.  When  two  years  and  three  months  of 
age,  she  was  accidentally  run  over  by  a  dog.  Before  this 
she  had  been  very  fond  of  dogs.  She  was  not  much  hurt, 
but  very  much  frightened,  and  repeated  to  every  one  the 
words,  'Doggie  run  over  baby.'  The  next  day  she  saw  a 
dog  on  the  street  and  showed  some  signs  of  fear  until  the 
brute  ran  away.  About  the  second  night  after  the  occurrence 
her  mother  and  I  were  awakened  by  a  violent  outcry  in  H.'s 
room.  On  going  in,  the  child  was  found  sitting  in  bed  under- 
going a  paroxysm  of  fear  from  a  bad  dream.  She  repeated 
again  and  again  after  leaving  the  room,  'Doggie  run  over 
baby  ana'  (ana  was  her  word  for  there),  pointing  into  her 
bedroom.  Evidently  she  had  lived  over  again  in  her  dream 
the  occurrence  with  the  dog.  The  effect  on  her  waking  life 


Subconscious  Adult  Suggestion  131 

was  very  marked.  The  next  day  she  could  not  be  induced 
to  go  into  her  bedroom,  protesting,  'Doggie  in  ana,'  and 
crying  lustily  if  the  endeavour  was  made  to  carry  her.  Fur- 
ther, for  several  days  the  sight  of  a  dog  on  the  street  threw 
her  into  such  convulsive  fits  of  fear  that  her  nurse  brought 
her  home  to  be  quieted  —  a  much  more  violent  exhibition, 
be  it  noted,  than  that  which  occurred  after  the  real  occurrence 
with  the  dog,  but  before  the  dream.  The  sight  or  even  the 
picture  of  a  dog  long  excited  great  emotion,  and  it  is  not  un- 
likely that  she  will  carry  for  life  this  antipathy,  which  will 
appear  later  to  be  unaccountable.1 

Normal  Auto-suggestion.  —  A  further  class  of  suggestions, 
which  fall  under  the  general  phrase  'auto-suggestion,'  of  a 
normal  type,  may  be  illustrated.  In  experimenting  upon 
the  possibility  of  suggesting  sleep  to  another,  I  have  found 
certain  strong  reactive  influences  upon  my  own  mental  con- 
dition. Such  an  effort,  which  involves  the  picturing  of  an- 
other as  asleep,  is  a  strong  auto-suggestion  of  sleep,  taking 
effect  in  my  own  case  in  about  five  minutes  if  the  conditions 
be  kept  constant.  The  more  clearly  the  patient's  sleep  is 
pictured,  the  stronger  becomes  the  subjective  feeling  of 
drowsiness.  After  about  ten  minutes  the  ability  to  give 
strong  concentration  seems  to  disintegrate,  attention  is  re- 
newed only  by  fits  and  starts  and  in  the  presence  of  great 
mental  inertia,  and  the  oncoming  of  sleep  is  almost  over- 
powering. A  frequent  cure  for  insomnia,  speaking  for  my- 
self, is  the  persistent  effort  to  put  some  one  else  asleep  by 
hard  thinking  of  the  end  in  view,  with  a  continued  gentle 
movement,  such  as  stroking  the  other  with  the  hand. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  bring  on  a  state  of 
drowsiness  by  imagining  myself  asleep.  The  first  effort  at 

1  FeVe*  cites  a  case  of  hysterical  paralysis  brought  on  by  a  dream,  Sensa- 
tion ct  Mouvement,  p.  25.  See  also  Brain,  January,  1887. 


132  Suggestion 

this,  indeed,  is  promising,  for  it  leads  to  a  state  of  restfulness 
and  ease  akin  to  the  mental  composure  which  is  the  usual 
preliminary  to  sleep ;  but  it  goes  no  farther.  It  is  succeeded 
by  a  state  of  steady  wakefulness,  which  effort  of  attention  or 
effort  not  to  attend  only  intensifies.  If  the  victim  of  insomnia 
could  only  forget  that  he  is  thus  afflicted,  could  forget  himself 
altogether,  his  case  would  be  more  hopeful.  The  contrast 
between  this  condition  and  that  already  described  shows 
that  it  is  the  self-idea,  with  the  emotions  it  awakens,  which 
prevents  the  suggestion  from  realizing  itself  and  probably 
accounts  for  many  cases  of  insomnia.1 

The  attempt  to  analyze  out  the  emotional  'moments' 
which  enter  into  the  latter  case  yields  some  such  result  as 
the  following.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  self,  however 
vaguely  and  fugitively,  without  inducing  positive  emotional 
excitement.  All  the  intense  self-motives  which  practical  life 
keeps  alive  —  the  most  vigorous  expressive  influences  of  our 
mental  nature  —  at  once  tend  to  spring  up  from  their  nascent 
state.  There  are  really  no  proper  distinctions  among  them : 
pride  2  shades  down  to  complacency,  complacency  merges 
into  mild  interest,  interest  becomes  intensified  in  anxiety  or 
fear.  Or  the  mere  thought  of  self  starts  a  train  of  affairs 
through  consciousness  about  which  personal  concern  is 
lively.  When  one  thinks  of  himself,  a  kind  of  egoistic  excite- 
ment at  once  arises.  It  is  undoubtedly  these  subjective  ele- 
ments, these  emotional  phases,  which  prevent  such  conscious 
auto-suggestions  from  realizing  themselves. 

Sense  Exaltation.  —  Recent  hypnotic  discussions  have 
shown  the  remarkable  exaltation  which  the  senses  may 

1  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  insomnia  readily  yields  to  hypnotic 
suggestion. 

3  A  friend  informs  me  that  when  he  pictures  himself  asleep  or  dead,  he 
cannot  help  feeling  gratified  that  he  makes  so  handsome  a  corpse. 


Subconscious   Adult  Suggestion  133 

attain  in  somnambulism,  together  with  a  corresponding  re- 
finement in  the  interpretative  faculty.  Events,  etc.,  quite 
subconscious,  usually  become  suggestions  of  direct  influence 
upon  the  subject.  Unintended  gestures,  habitual  with  the 
experimenter,  may  suffice  to  hypnotize  his  accustomed  sub- 
ject. The  possibility  of  such  training  of  the  senses  in  the 
normal  state  has  not  had  sufficient  emphasis.  The  young 
child's  subtle  discriminations  of  facial  and  other  personal 
indications  are  remarkable.  The  prolonged  experience  of 
putting  H.  to  sleep  —  extending  over  a  period  of  more  than 
six  months,  during  which  I  slept  beside  her  bed  —  served 
to  make  me  alive  to  a  certain  class  of  suggestions  otherwise 
quite  beyond  notice.1 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  note  the  intense  auto-suggestion 
of  sleep  already  pointed  out,  under  the  stimulus  of  repeated 
nursery  rhymes  regularly  resorted  to  in  putting  the  child 
asleep.  Second,  surprising  progressive  exaltation  of  hearing 
and  the  interpretation  of  sounds  coming  from  her  in  a  dark 
room.  At  the  end  of  four  or  five  months,  her  movements  in 
bed  awoke  me  or  not  according  as  she  herself  was  awake  or 
not.  Frequently  after  awaking  I  was  distinctly  aware  of 
what  movements  of  hers  had  awaked  me.2  A  movement  of 
her  head  by  which  it  was  held  up  from  her  pillow  was  readily 
distinguished  from  the  restless  movements  of  her  sleep.  It 
was  not  so  much,  therefore,  exaltation  of  hearing  as  exalta- 
tion of  the  function  of  the  recognition  of  sounds  heard  and  of 
their  discrimination. 

Again,  the  same  phenomenon  to  an  equally  marked  degree 

1  It  is  well  known  that  mothers  are  awake  to  the  needs  of  their  infants 
when  they  are  asleep  to  everything  else. 

3  This  fact  is  analogous  to  our  common  experience  of  being  awaked  by  a 
loud  noise  and  then  hearing  it  after  we  awake ;  although  the  explanation  is 
not  the  same. 


134  Suggestion 

attended  the  sound  of  her  breathing.  It  is  well  enough 
known  that  the  smallest  functional  bodily  change  induces 
changes  in  both  the  rapidity  and  the  quality  of  the  respira- 
tion.1 In  sleep  the  muscles  of  inhalation  and  exhalation  are 
relaxed,  inhalation  becomes  long  and  deep,  exhalation  short 
and  exhaustive,  and  the  rhythmic  intervals  of  respiration 
much  lengthened.  Now  degrees  of  relative  wakefulness  are 
indicated  with  surprising  delicacy  by  the  slight  respiration- 
sounds  given  forth  by  the  sleeper.  Professional  nurses  learn 
to  interpret  these  indications  with  great  skill.  This  kind  of 
hearing-exaltation  became  very  pronounced  in  my  operations 
with  my  child.  After  some  experience  the  peculiar  breath- 
ing of  advancing  or  actual  wakefulness  in  the  child  was  suffi- 
cient to  wake  me.  And  when  awake  myself,  the  change  in 
the  infant's  respiration-sounds  to  those  indicative  of  on- 
coming sleep  was  sufficient  to  suggest  or  bring  on  sleep  in 
myself.  In  the  dark,  also,  the  general  character  of  her 
breathing-sounds  was  interpreted  with  great  accuracy  in 
terms  of  her  varied  needs,  her  comfort  or  discomfort,  etc. 
The  same  kind  of  suggestion  from  the  respiration-sounds 
now  troubles  me  whenever  any  one  is  sleeping  within  hearing 
distance.2 

1  Cf.  Vierordt  in  Gerhard? s  Handbuch  der  Kinderkrankheilen,  p.  215. 

1  This  is  an  unpleasant  result  which  I  find  confirmed  by  professional 
infants'  nurses.  They  complain  of  loss  of  sleep  when  off  duty.  Mrs.  James 
Murray,  an  infants'  nurse  in  Toronto,  informs  me  that  she  finds  it  impossible 
to  sleep  when  she  has  no  infant  in  hearing  distance,  and  for  that  reason  she 
never  asks  for  a  vacation.  Her  normal  sleep  has  evidently  come  to  depend 
upon  continuous  soporific  suggestions  from  a  child.  In  another  point,  also, 
her  experience  confirms  my  observations,  viz.,  the  child's  movements,  pre- 
liminary to  waking,  awake  her,  when  no  other  movements  of  the  child  do  so 
—  the  consequence  being  that  she  is  ready  for  the  infant  when  it  gets  fully 
awake  and  cries  out. 

I  may  add  that  these  vague  suggestive  influences,  acting  upon  the  operator, 
have  not  been  sufficiently  weighed  in  the  practice  of  hypnotism.  Ochorowicz 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  135 

The  reactions  in  movement  upon  these  suggestions  are  very 
marked  and  appropriate,  in  customary  or  habitual  lines,  al- 
though the  stimulations  are  quite  subconscious.  The  clearest 
illustrations  in  this  body  of  my  experiences  were  afforded  by 
my  responses  in  crude  songs  to  the  infant's  waking  move- 
ments and  breathing-sounds.  I  have  often  waked  myself 
by  myself  singing  one  of  two  nursery  rhymes,  which  by  end- 
less repetition  night  after  night  had  become  so  automatic  as 
to  follow  in  a  reactive  way  upon  the  sense-stimulus  from  the 
child.  It  is  certainly  astonishing  that  among  the  things 
which  one  may  get  to  do  automatically,  we  find  automatic 
singing :  but  writers  on  mental  defect  have  noted  that  the 
function  of  musical  or  semi-musical  expression  may  be  reflex.1 

The  principle  of  subconscious  suggestion,  of  which  these 
simple  facts  are  less  important  illustrations,  has  very  interest- 
ing applications  in  the  higher  reaches  of  social,  moral,  and 
educational  theory.  I  have  applied  the  phrase  '  plastic  imita- 
tion' to  certain  of  the  social  and  educational  phenomena.2 

§  6.   Inhibitory  Suggestion 

An  interesting  class  of  phenomena  which  figure  perhaps 
at  all  the  levels  of  suggestion  now  described,  may  be  known 
as  'inhibitory  suggestions.'  The  phrase,  in  its  broadest  use, 
refers  to  all  cases  in  which  the  suggesting  stimulus  tends  to 
suppress,  check,  inhibit,  movement.  We  find  this  in  certain 

points  this  out.  It  is  almost  impossible  for  the  operator  to  give  suggestions 
which  he  has  not  himself  taken  in  a  measure  from  the  patient,  or  which  both 
he  and  the  patient  have  not  gotten  in  common  from  a  common  psychic  atmos- 
phere. There  is,  I  fancy,  a  good  deal  of  this  reciprocal  influence  in  the  cases 
of  striking  rapport  between  particular  operators  and  patients.  Of  course  I 
can  more  easily  give  effective  suggestions  to  you,  if  I  am  myself  getting  what 
I  suggest  in  whole  or  part  from  you  in  the  first  instance. 

1  Cf.  Wallaschek,  Zeitsch.  fur  Psychologic,  VI.,  Hefte  2,  3. 

'Mind,  January,  1894;  cf.  Chap.  XII.,  §  2,  below. 


1 36  Suggestion 

cases  just  as  strongly  marked  as  the  positive  movement- 
bringing  kind  of  suggestion.  The  facts  may  be  put  under 
certain  heads  in  relation  to  the  types  of  suggestion  already 
enumerated,  the  general  theory  being  left  over  for  the  doctrine 
of  mental  development  found  in  subsequent  chapters. 

Pain  Suggestion.  —  Of  course,  the  fact  that  pain  inhibits 
movement  occurs  at  once  to  the  reader.  As  far  as  this  is 
true  always,  and  is  a  native  inherited  thing,  it  is  organic, 
and  so  falls  under  the  head  of  'physiological  suggestion'  of 
a  negative  sort.  The  child  shows  contracting  movements, 
crying  movements,  starting  and  jumping  movements,  shortly 
after  birth,  and  so  plainly  that  we  need  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  these  pain  responses  are  provided  for  in  his  nervous 
system;  and  that,  in  general,  they  are  inhibitory  and  con- 
trary to  those  other  native  reactions  which  indicate  pleasure. 
Our  theory  provides,  as  stated  below,  a  way  of  accounting 
for  this  state  of  things.1 

The  influence  of  pain,  besides  being  thus  a  physiological 
datum,  extends  everywhere  through  mental  development.  It 
is  one  of  our  main  objects  to  try  to  ascertain  its  exact  func- 
tion, both  in  individual  and  in  race  development;  so  any 
further  word  upon  it  here  would  only  anticipate  later  de- 
tailed treatment.  The  general  fact,  however,  is  this:  that 
pain  suggests  a  lively  muscular  revolt  away  from  every  stimu- 
lus which  produces  it ;  and  this  statement  includes,  of  course, 
the  inhibition  of  any  movement  which  brings  pain,  since  this 
movement  is  itself  felt  as  a  stimulating  or  incoming  process 
along  those  afferent  nerve  courses  which  serve  as  the  appara- 
tus of  the  muscular  sense. 

Control  Suggestion.  —  This  covers  all  cases  which  show 
any  kind  of  restraint  set  upon  the  movements  of  the  body 
short  of  that  which  comes  from  voluntary  intention.  The 
1  See  especially,  Chap.  VII.  and  Chap.  XVI.,  §  2. 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  137 

infant  brings  the  movements  of  his  legs,  arms,  head,  etc., 
gradually  into  some  kind  of  order  and  system.  This  is 
accomplished  by  a  system  of  organic  checks  and  counter- 
checks, by  which  associations  are  formed  between  muscu- 
lar sensations  and  certain  other  sensations,  as  of  sight,  touch, 
hearing,  etc.  The  latter  serve  as  suggestions  to  the  per- 
formance of  those  movements,  and  those  only,  which  produce 
the  former.  The  infant  learns  to  hold  up  his  head,  to  raise 
his  trunk,  to  extend  his  hands,  to  grasp  with  thumb  opposite 
the  four  fingers  —  all  purely  by  such  control  suggestions. 

These  cases  come  so  near  to  the  sphere  of  voluntary 
action  —  indeed,  they  pass  so  directly  into  volitions  —  that 
they  are  more  profitably  discussed  in  the  chapter  devoted 
to  that  topic.  We  will  there  see  reasons  for  rejecting  the 
view  of  some,  that  these  are  voluntary  acts  on  the  part  of  the 
child.  The  few  new  observations  which  I  have  to  offer  on 
this  topic  may  also  be  reserved. 

Contrary  Suggestion.  —  By  this  is  meant  a  tendency  of  a 
very  singular  kind  observable  in  many  children,  no  less  than 
in  many  adults,  to  do  the  contrary  when  any  course  is  sug- 
gested. The  very  word  'contrary'  is  used  in  popular  talk 
to  describe  an  individual  who  shows  this  type  of  conduct. 
Such  a  child  or  man  is  rebellious  whenever  rebellion  is  pos- 
sible; he  seems  to  kick  constitutionally  against  the  pricks. 
My  child  E.  showed  it  in  her  second  year  in  a  very  marked 
way.  When  told  that  a  new  taste  was  'good' — a  sugges- 
tion readily  taken  in  its  positive  sense  by  her  sister  at  that  age 
—  she  would  turn  away  with  a  show  of  distaste  even  when  she 
had  liked  the  same  taste  earlier.  When  asked  to  give  her 
hand  into  mine,  —  a  case  of  direct  imitative  suggestion,  — 
she  thrust  it  behind  her  back.  The  sight  of  hat  and  cloak 
was  a  signal  for  a  tempest,  although  she  enjoyed  outdoor 
excursions.  These  are  only  instances  from  many  of  her 


1 38  Suggestion 

contrary  suggestions  at  this  period.  The  tendency  yielded  to 
the  all-conquering  onset  of  imitation  late  in  her  second  year, 
and  she  is  now  (third  year)  as  docile  an  imitator  as  one  could 
desire. 

The  fact  of  'contrariness'  in  older  children  —  especially 
boys  —  is  so  familiar  to  all  who  have  observed  school  chil- 
dren with  any  care,  that  I  need  not  cite  further  details.  And 
men  and  women  often  become  so  enslaved  to  suggestions  of 
contrary  that  they  seem  only  to  wait  for  indications  of  the 
wishes  of  others  in  order  to  oppose  and  thwart  them. 

Contrary  suggestions  are  to  be  explained  as  exaggerated 
instances  of  control.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  checks  and 
counter-checks  already  spoken  of  as  constituting  the  method 
of  suggestive  control  of  movement  —  that  these  may  them- 
selves become  so  habitual  and  intense  as  to  dominate  the 
reactions  which  they  should  only  regulate.  The  associa- 
tions between  the  muscular  series  and  the  visual  series,  let  us 
say,  which  controls  it,  comes  to  work  backwards,  so  that  the 
drift  of  the  organic  processes  is  toward  certain  contrary  re- 
verse movements.  Certain  of  the  other  associates  of  the  con- 
trol series  also,  especially  those  which,  by  strong  contrasting 
experiences  of  pleasure  and  pain,  represent  in  any  sense  a 
contrary  series,  may  become  dominating.  While  in  the  case 
of  simple  movements,  as  I  have  said,  the  dominant  associates 
are  only  the  same  motor  and  visual  series  read  backwards; 
yet  the  range  of  contrast  effects  secured  by  association  ex- 
tends to  all  cases  of  opposing  systems  of  movement  and  sug- 
gestions of  conduct.  So  contrary  suggestion  becomes  clear 
as  a  case  of  auto-suggestion  in  which  the  stimulating  sensa- 
tion or  thought  is  itself  started  up  in  sharp  contrast  and  habit- 
ual opposition  to  a  present  external  suggestion  of  the  regular 
kind. 

In  the  higher  reaches  of  conduct  and  life  we  find  interest- 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  1 39 

ing  cases  of  very  refined  contrary  suggestion.  In  the  man  of 
ascetic  temperament,  the  duty  of  self-denial  takes  the  form  of 
a  regular  contrary  suggestion  in  opposition  to  every  invita- 
tion to  self-indulgence,  however  innocent.  And  the  over- 
scrupulous mind,  like  the  over-precise,  is  a  prey  to  the  eternal 
remonstrances  from  the  contrary  which  intrude  their  advice 
into  all  his  decisions.  In  matters  of  thought  and  belief,  also, 
cases  are  common  of  stubborn  opposition  to  evidence,  and 
persistence  in  opinion,  which  are  in  no  way  due  to  the  cogency 
of  the  contrary  argument,  or  to  real  force  of  conviction. 

Bashjulness.  —  I  may  first  report  observations  on  this  in- 
teresting fact  of  child-life,  considered  as  an  exhibition  of  what 
has  been  called  'inhibitory  suggestion';  and  then  show  its 
bearings. 

The  general  character  of  a  child's  bashfulness  need  not  be 
enlarged  upon.  Its  form  of  expression  is  also  familiar.  It 
begins  to  appear  generally  in  the  first  year,  showing  itself  as 
an  inhibiting  influence  upon  the  child's  normal  activities. 
Its  most  evident  signs  are  nervous  fingerings  of  dress,  objects, 
hands,  etc.,  turning  away  of  head  and  body,  bowing  of  head 
and  hiding  of  face,  awkward  movements  of  trunk  and  legs, 
and  in  extreme  cases,  reddening  of  the  face,  puckering  of  lips 
and  eye  muscles,  and  finally  cries  and  weeping.  An  impor- 
tant difference,  however,  is  observable  in  these  exhibitions 
according  as  the  child  is  accompanied  by  a  familiar  person 
or  not.  When  the  mother  or  nurse  is  present,  many  of  the 
signs  seem  to  be  useful  in  securing  concealment  from  the  eye 
of  strangers  —  behind  dress  or  apron  or  figure  of  the  familiar 
person.  In  the  absence,  however,  of  such  a  refuge  the  child 
sinks  often  into  a  state  of  general  passivity  or  inhibition  of 
movement,  akin  to  the  sort  of  paralysis  usually  associated 
with  great  fear. 

This  analogy  with  the  physical  signs  of  fear  gives  a  real 


140  Suggestion 

indication,  I  think,  of  the  race  origin  of  bashfulness,  which  is 
probably  a  differentiation  of  fear.  This  I  cannot  dwell  upon 
now,  but  simply  suggest  that  bashfulness  arose  as  a  special 
utility-reaction  on  occasion  of  fear  of  persons,  in  view  of 
personal  qualities  possessed  by  the  one  who  fears.  The 
concealing  tendency  also  shows  the  parallel  development 
of  intimate  personal  relationships  of  protection,  support, 
etc.,  and  so  gives  indications  of  certain  early  social  con- 
ditions. 

My  observations  of  bashfulness  —  not  to  dwell  upon  de- 
scriptions which  have  been  made  before  by  others  —  serve 
to  throw  the  illustrations  of  it  into  certain  periods  or  epochs 
which  I  may  briefly  characterize  in  order. 

i.  The  child  is  earliest  seized  with  what  may  be  called 
'primary'  or  'organic'  bashfulness  akin  to  the  organic  stages 
in  the  well-recognized  instinctive  emotions,  such  as  fear,  anger, 
sympathy,  etc.1  This  exhibition  occurs  in  the  first  year  and 
marks  the  attitudes  of  the  infant  toward  strangers.  It  is  not 
so  much  inhibitory  of  action  in  this  first  stage ;  it  rather  takes 
on  the  positive  signs  of  fear,  with  protestation,  shrinking, 
crying,  etc.  It  falls  easily  under  the  type  of  reaction  de- 
scribed as  ' sensori-motor  suggestion/  above;  being  very 
largely  provided  for  in  the  nervous  equipment  of  the  child  at 
this  age. 

The  duration  of  this  stage  depends  largely  upon  the  child's 
social  environment.  The  passage  from  the  attitude  of  in- 
stinctive antipathy  toward  outsiders,  and  that  of  affection 
equally  instinctive  toward  the  members  of  the  household,  over 
into  a  more  reasonable  sense  of  the  difference  between  proved 
friends  and  unproved  strangers  —  this  depends  directly  upon 
the  growth  of  the  sense  of  general  social  relationships  es- 

1  On  which  last  see  Chap.  XI.,  §  3,  below,  and  cf.  my  Handbook  of  Psy- 
chology, II.,  Chap.  VIII.,  §  7. 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  141 

tablished  by  experience.1  One  of  the  most  important  ele- 
ments in  the  child's  progress,  in  this  way,  out  of  its  'organic' 
social  life,  is  the  degree  and  variety  of  its  intercourse  with 
other  children,  and  indeed  also  with  other  adults,  than  those 
of  its  own  home.  Children  carried  to  summer  hotels  every 
year,  or  brought  frequently  into  the  drawing-room  to  see  the 
mothers'  callers,  soon  lose  all  'fear  of  strangers'  and  become 
quite  frankly  approachable,  even  showing  great  liking  for 
society  at  the  tender  age  of  a  year  and  a  half  or  so.  On  the 
other  hand,  children  kept  in  extreme  isolation  from  strangers, 
young  or  old,  may  show  extraordinary  paralysis  of  all  motor 
functions,  of  a  markedly  organic  kind,  steadily  for  two  or 
three  years  later  on  in  their  development,  when  brought  sud- 
denly into  the  presence  of  those  who  are  unfamiliar.2 

The  rapidity  with  which  a  child  gets  over  its  organic  bash- 
fulness  varies  also  remarkably  with  the  attitudes  of  older 
children  whom  he  sees.  Nothing  else  cures  a  child  of  this 
physical  shyness  as  quickly  as  the  example  of  an  older  child. 
This  is  also  one  of  the  marked  offices  of  imitation.  It  pre- 
sents to  the  imitative  child  an  example  or  '  copy,'  which  tends 
to  bring  out  his  action  in  definite  ways  earlier  than  his  own 
organic  growth  would  in  itself  have  warranted.  The  child 
by  instinct  imitates  movements,  etc.,  which  he  would  other- 
wise have  waited  to  acquire  largely  by  accident.  In  this  way 
the  stages  of  social  growth  are  very  materially  shortened. 

2.  I  find  next  a  period  of  strong  social  tendency  in  the  child, 
of  toleration  of  strangers  and  liking  for  persons  generally,  in 
great  contrast  to  the  attitudes  of  organic  distrust  of  the  earlier 
period  just  mentioned.  There  seems  to  be  in  this  a  reaction 

1  The  experience,  i.e.,  largely  got  through  imitation  and  its  clarifying  influ- 
ence upon  the  sense  of  self  in  the  child;   see  below,  Chap.  XI.,  §  3. 

2  See  the  remarks  on  such  'isolation,'  in  reference  to  the  development  of 
personality,  in  my  short  article  in  the  Century  Magazine,  December,  1894, 
repeated  in  substance  below,  Chap.  XII.,  §  3. 


142  Suggestion 

against  the  instinct  of  social  self-preservation  characteristic 
of  the  earlier  stage.  It  is  due  in  all  likelihood  to  the  actual 
experience  of  the  child  in  receiving  kind  treatment  from  stran- 
gers —  kinder,  in  the  way  of  indiscriminate  indulgence  than 
the  more  orderly  treatment  which  it  gets  from  its  own  parents. 
Everybody  comes  to  be  trusted  on  first  acquaintance  by  the 
child,  through  the  teachings  of  his  own  experience,  just  as  in 
the  earlier  years  everybody  was  treated  by  him,  under  the 
instincts  of  his  inherited  nature,  as  an  agent  of  possible 
harm. 

That  this  new  phase  of  social  attitude  is  learned  from  ex- 
perience is  seen  in  the  absence  of  this  confidence,  on  the  part 
of  the  child,  toward  animals.  The  fear,  purely  of  the  or- 
ganic stage,  persists  in  the  child's  thoughts  of  animals  which 
are  new  to  him,  and  only  becomes  more  confirmed  as  he  fails 
to  get  the  same  reasons  for  'modifying  his  opinion'  that 
teach  him  to  tolerate  strange  persons  more  and  more  com- 
fortably. The  contrast  is  strongly  brought  out  sometimes 
when  such  a  young  child  meets  animals  in  public  places.  He 
then  turns  to  persons  for  protection,  even  to  the  strange  per- 
sons before  whom,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  he  would 
stand  abashed.  His  native  sense  of  social  protection,  at  first 
limited  to  his  natural  protectors  in  his  own  house,  has  come 
to  extend  to  all  persons,  as  against  such  common  enemies  as 
the  brutes.  Later  on,  as  we  know,  the  domestic  animals  get 
taken  over,  also,  from  the  one  class  into  the  other. 

3.  Finally  I  note  the  return  of  bashfulness  in  the  child's 
third  year  and  later.  This  time  it  is  bashfulness  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term,  rid  of  the  element  of  fear,  and  rid, 
largely,  of  its  compelling  organic  force  and  methods  of  ex- 
pression. The  bashful  five-year-old  smiles  in  the  midst  of 
his  hesitations,  draws  near  to  the  object  of  his  curiosity,  is 
evidently  overwhelmed  with  the  sense  of  his  own  presence 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  143 

rather  than  with  that  of  his  new  acquaintance,  and  indulges 
in  actions  calculated  to  keep  notice  drawn  to  himself. 

The  reality  of  this  group  of  the  child's  social  attitudes,  and 
the  great  contrast  which  they  present  to  those  of  the  organic 
period,  can  hardly  have  too  much  emphasis.  It  is  one  of 
the  great  outstanding  facts  of  his  progressive  relation  to  the 
elements  of  his  social  milieu.  There  is  a  sort  of  self-exhibi- 
tion, almost  of  coquetry,  in  the  child's  behaviour;  which 
shows  the  most  remarkable  commingling  of  native  organic 
elements  with  the  social  lessons  of  personal  well-  and  ill- 
desert  which  are  now  becoming  of  such  importance  in  his  life. 
All  this  makes  so  marked  a  contrast  to  the  exhibitions  of 
organic  bashfulness  that  it  constitutes  in  my  opinion  a  most 
important  resource  for  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  the  social 
sense. 

In  this  last  case  we  have  before  us,  in  short,  a  phenomenon 
of  rather  complex  self-consciousness  —  a  thing  of  ideal  value 
—  and  its  suggestion-complexes,  as  they  body  themselves 
forth  in  the  child's  reactions,  tell  of  his  extraordinary  progress 
in  the  understanding  of  himself  and  the  world.  He  now 
begins  to  show  the  germ  of  modesty  and  of  all  the  emotions 
akin  to  and  contrary  to  it. 

With  this  degree  of  progress  we  may  now  leave  the  child, 
not  undertaking  the  discussion  of  the  development  of  true 
modesty  in  its  later  stages  in  the  intricate  special  movements 
of  adolescence:  but  it  remains  to  point  out  the  congruity 
between  this  scheme  of  the  child's  different  behaviours  in 
respect  to  persons  and  the  different  personal  suggestions 
which  in  an  earlier  place  1  we  found  him  actually  getting  from 
others. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  several  aspects  of  the  child's 

1  Cf .  §  3  of  this  chapter,  above,  which  restates  an  article  on  'Personality 
Suggestion,'  in  The  Psychological  Review,  I.,  p.  274,  May,  1894. 


144  Suggestion 

personal  environment  were  found  to  appeal  to  him  in  a  pro- 
gressive way.  It  seemed  fair  to  think  that  persons  are  at  first 
to  him  only  a  peculiar  part  of  his  'projected/  presented,  ob- 
jective, world  of  things.  He  has  'personal  projects,'  as  we 
found  it  well  to  call  them,  before  he  has  any  sense  of  himself 
as  a  spiritual  being  or  as  the  subject  of  his  own  mental  pro- 
cesses. The  getting  of  objects  seems  to  be  part  of  the  busi- 
ness for  which  his  nervous  equipment  more  or  less  adequately 
provides,  and  among  these  objects,  the  persons  who  move 
around  him  get  themselves  characterized  by  very  important 
marks. 

The  observation  of  organic  bashfulness  tends,  when  viewed 
in  connection  with  this  earlier  point,  to  confirm  this  view  of 
the  way  the  child  begins  to  apprehend  persons;  and  at  the 
same  time,  it  enables  us  to  see  a  little  farther.  For  strange  as 
it  may  appear,  we  are  here  confronted  with  an  element  of 
organic  equipment  especially  fitted  to  receive  and  respond  to 
these  peculiar  objects,  persons,  'personal  projects.'  The 
child  strikes  instinctively  an  extraordinary  series  of  attitudes 
when  persons  appear  among  his  objects,  attitudes  which  other 
objects,  qua  objects,  do  not  excite.  And  later  in  life,  in  the 
organic  effects  indicative  of  modesty,  such  as  blushing,  hesi- 
tating, etc.,  we  find  similar  signs  of  a  social  rapport  which 
has  grown  into  the  very  fibres  of  our  nerves.  These  atti- 
tudes extend  somewhat  to  animals,  as  we  have  seen ;  and  that 
makes  it  all  the  more  striking.  For  animals  are  persons,  to 
a  child  of  that  age;  they  act  upon  him  through  his  animal 
parts,  through  physical  pains,  pleasures,  fears,  etc.,  and  that 
is  the  only  way  that  persons  also  can  act  upon  an  infant  a 
year  old. 

We  have  to  say,  therefore,  that  the  child  is  born  to  be  a 
member  of  society,  in  the  same  sense,  precisely,  that  he  is 
born  with  eyes  and  ears  to  see  and  hear  the  movements  and 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  145 

sounds  of  the  world,  and  with  touch  to  feel  the  things  of  space ; 
and,  as  I  hope  to  show  later  in  detail,1  all  views  of  the  man  as 
a  total  creature,  a  creation,  must  recognize  him  not  as  a  single 
soul  shut  up  in  a  single  body  to  act,  or  to  abstain  from  act- 
ing, upon  others  similarly  shut  up  in  similar  bodies ;  but  as 
a  soul  partly  in  his  own  body,  partly  in  the  bodies  of  others, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  so  intimate  is  this  social  bond  — 
a  service  for  which  he  pays  in  kind,  since  we  see  in  his  body, 
considered  simply  as  a  physical  organism,  preparation  for  the 
reception  of  the  soul-life,  the  suggestions  of  mind  and  spirit, 
of  those  others.  I  do  not  see  wherein  the  community  of  the 
senses  together,  in  a  single  life  of  nervous  activity,  differs 
very  much  in  conception  from  this  community  of  men,  bound 
together  by  the  native  ties  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  their  most 
abstract  and  developed  social  organizations. 

Again,  the  second  phase  of  the  child's  actions  in  the  presence 
of  persons  —  the  freer,  more  ready  reception  of  strangers  and 
intercourse  with  them,  seen  usually  during  the  second  year  — 
this  also  gives  us  what  our  earlier  notes  on  '  personality-sug- 
gestion' would  lead  us  to  expect.  We  saw  that  the  child 
begins  to  find  out  more  about  persons,  and  so  to  gain  associa- 
tions which  give  him  the  beginning  of  certain  expectations 
regarding  them ;  self-formed  expectations,  that  is,  no  longer 
dependent  merely  upon  the  stirrings  of  instinct  and  in- 
herited impulse.  He  learns  that  pleasure  almost  always 
comes  from  persons,  and  so  does  the  alleviation  of  pain. 
This  is  a  mortal  blow  at  organic  bashfulness,  as  every  father 
and  mother  knows.  A  lump  of  sugar  will  very  soon  release 
the  inhibitions  of  the  shy  year-old.  Then  he  further  learns 
something  of  the  characteristics  of  persons,  the  irregularity 
of  personal  action,  the  presence  of  the  'personal  equation' 

1  Now  made  the  principal  thesis  of  the  volume  Social  and  Ethical  Inter- 
pretations. 

L 


146  Suggestion 

of  mood  and  feeling  in  those  nearest  to  him.  This  leads  him 
to  seek  out  methods,  somewhat  individual  to  himself,  of  pleas- 
ing these  near  persons  and  of  securing  their  smile  and  appro- 
bation, or  of  escaping  the  reproofs  which  even  his  shyness 
brings ;  and  these  he  substitutes  for  the  blinder  attempt,  which 
nature  taught  him,  to  hide  his  physical  person. 

And  he  also  learns  our  habits,  the  regularities  of  character 
in  adults,  and  so  learns  that  nobody  means  to  hurt  him, 
after  all.  It  is  amusing  how  soon  a  two-  or  three-year-old 
child  'sizes  up'  a  stranger,  and  meets  him  halfway  with 
conduct  more  or  less  appropriately  attuned  to  the  in- 
dications of  character  shown  in  the  face  and  acts  of  the 
newcomer. 

So,  with  all  this,  the  instinctive  or  'organic'  bashfulness 
gets  rapidly  rubbed  away.  But  it  is  now  clear  that  the 
means  of  this  freedom  from  it  are  all  social.  A  child's 
growth  away  from  the  instinct  of  social  fear  to  the  appre- 
hension of  social  truth,  and  all  his  actions  midway  in  this 
progress,  come  only  from  varied  and  persistent  experience 
of  people  and  appeals  to  living  examples.  How  can  char- 
acter be  apprehended  if  characters  are  absent?  And  how 
can  character  schemes  be  grown  into,  if  the  regularity  of  the 
child's  life  is  of  so  narrow  a  scope  that  all  the  threads  of  his 
social  relationship  run  the  same  way,  and  no  tangles  and 
confusions  arise  to  bring  out  his  own  strenuous  action  and 
his  rebellions  against  his  native  reflex  ways  of  behaviour? 

The  oncoming  of  true  bashfulness,  finally,  —  the  bash- 
fulness  which  shows  reflection,  in  its  simpler  form,  upon  self 
and  the  actions  of  self,  —  represents  the  child's  direct  ap- 
plication of  what  he  knows  of  persons  to  his  own  inner  life. 
It  is  what  we  have  called  the  'subjective'  stage  in  his  sense 
of  personality.1 

1  See  Mind,  January,  1894;  also  below,  Chap.  XI.,  §  3. 


Inhibitory   Suggestion  147 

But,  as  we  shall  also  see,  this  grows  only  apace  with  the 
contrary  movement  by  which  he  assigns  his  own  enriched 
mental  experience  back  to  his  teacher,  and  seeks  his  further 
judgment  upon  it.  The  child,  when  he  knows  himself  able 
to  draw  a  figure,  for  example,  does  not  know  this  alone,  or 
this  completely.  He  has  also  the  sense  of  the  social  'copy' 
or  example  from  which  the  lesson  was  learned,  and  further 
and  with  it,  he  knows  that  his  performance  is  again  subject 
to  revision  in  light  of  the  approval  or  disapproval  'of  teacher 
or  friend.  The  performances  of  the  self  cannot  in  any  case 
be  freed  from  the  sense  of  possible  inspection  by  others,  and 
the  child  shrinks  from  this  inspection.  This  has  further 
development  below.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  this  higher 
rapport,  which  involves  clearly  the  sense  of  self-agency,  but 
self-agency  still  tied  down  to  the  agency  of  other  people  like 
self,  —  here  in  the  real  reflective  relation  of  self  to  others, 
—  comes  the  third  and  crowning  stage  of  the  class  of  phe- 
nomena known  by  the  word  '  bashfulness.'  My  children  do 
their  imperfect  tasks  for  me  because  they  know  me  to  under- 
stand and  be  indulgent :  even  the  elder  assumes  the  patron, 
and  says  of  the  younger:  'She  is  so  little,  you  know.'  But 
in  the  presence  of  the  stranger  whose  opinion  is  not  known 
beforehand,  they  are  bashful  with  the  sense  of  new  standards 
perhaps  firmly  insisted  upon.  This  is  where  the  inhibiting 
suggestion  of  true  bashfulness  appears:  that  of  modesty, 
and  clearly  also  that  of  certain  ethical  emotions. 

The  whole  situation  becomes,  I  may  add,  an  extraordinary 
point  of  vantage  for  estimating  the  development  view  of  the 
origin  of  the  social  and  personal  sense.  We  have  in  it 
direct  evidence  of  the  growth  of  the  social  instinct  by  accre- 
tions from  experiences  of  social  conditions  —  or  if  we  go 
into  refinements  of  biological  theory,  from  the  adding  up  of 


148  Suggestion 

variations  all  fitted  to  survive  socially  —  and  direct  evidence, 
further,  of  the  lines  of  progress  which  these  experiences  and 
variations  have  marked  out.  For  the  infant  is  an  embryo 
person,  a  social  unit  in  the  process  of  forming;  and  he  is, 
in  these  early  stages,  plainly  recapitulating  the  items  in  the 
social  history  of  the  race.1 

This  social  evolution  presents  a  phase,  therefore,  of  gen- 
eral development  in  which  the  theory  that  the  individual 
goes  through  stages  which  repeat  the  race-stages  of  his 
species  ought  to  find  illustrations  of  more  than  common 
value.  For  the  social  life  is  a  late  attainment,  whether  con- 
sidered anthropologically  or  racially,  and  the  child  waits  to 
begin  the  series  of  '  laps  in  the  social  race '  until  he  meets  us, 
his  observers,  face  to  face.  The  embryology  of  society  is 
open  to  study  in  the  nursery. 

I  think,  accordingly,  that  several  important  hints  at  the 
history  of  societies,  both  animal  and  human,  are  afforded 
by  the  phenomena  of  bashfulness  as  now  described.  These 
I  can  do  no  more  than  mention  at  present. 

Organic  bashfulness  would  seem  to  represent  the  instinc- 
tive fear  shown  by  the  higher  animals,  coupled  with  the 
natural  family  and  gregarious  instincts  which  they  have. 
This  shades  up  into  the  more  fearless  and  more  confiding 
attitudes  of  certain  passably  peaceable  creatures,  which  take 
kindly  to  domestication,  and  depend  more  upon  animal 
organizations  and  natural  defences,  such  as  those  afforded 
by  geographical  distribution,  coloration,  habits  of  life,  etc., 
for  their  protection.  For  the  social  protections  are  after  all 
more  effective  for  the  defence  of  racial  life  and  propagation 
than  the  special  instinctive  armament  of  individuals.  Then, 
of  course,  only  in  man  do  we  find  the  stage  of  reflective 

1  See  the  discussion  of  the  biological  theory  of  '  Recapitulation,'  above, 
Chap.  I. 


Hypnotic    Suggestion  149 

thought  on  self  and  the  social  relations  of  self,  which  is  seen 
germinating  in  the  child  in  the  third  year  or  later. 

The  parallel  seems  also  to  be  worth  something  to  the 
anthropologist  when  he  comes  to  inquire  into  the  history  of 
the  human  species.  Admitting  with  Westermarck  that  man 
as  a  species  is  monogamous  and  tends  to  family  life,  we 
should  find  in  his  earliest  history  the  period  corresponding 
to  the  organic  bashfulness  of  the  child;  and  its  instinctive 
presence  in  the  very  young  child  lends  some  support,  per- 
haps, to  Westermarck's  view.  The  later  tribal  and  nomadic 
conditions  possibly  tended  to  release  the  cords  of  an  instinct 
so  purely  defensive,  and  to  bring  in  the  freer  range  of  peace- 
ful pursuits  represented,  it  is  conceivable,  by  the  second 
stage  of  the  child's  history ;  while  again  the  stage  of  develop- 
ment of  the  distinctly  industrial,  artistic,  and  commercial  life 
of  man,  with  its  social  ways  of  solving  all  problems  of  public 
welfare,  corresponds  to  the  more  reflective  attainments  of  the 
period  which  is  seen  dawning  in  the  true  bashfulness  of  the 
three-year-old.  For  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  recent 
writers  are  correct  in  finding  that  the  more  refined  egoism 
is  a  reflex  from  the  more  generalized  socialism;  a  thesis 
which  social  psychology  takes  now  from  the  analyses  of  men 
like  Balzac  and  Bourget  and  the  insights  of  Tarde  and  the 
historians  of  society ;  but  one  which  it  is  itself  quite  able,  I 
think,  to  make  good  by  its  own  methods  of  inquiry. 

§  7.  Hypnotic  Suggestion 

The  facts  upon  which  the  current  theories  of  hypnotism 
are  based  may  be  summed  up  under  a  few  heads,  and  the 
recital  of  them  will  serve  to  bring  this  class  of  phenomena 
into  the  general  lines  of  classification  drawn  out  in  this 
chapter. 


1 50  Suggestion 

The  Facts. — When  by  any  cause  the  attention  is  held  fixed 
upon  an  object,  say  a  bright  button,  for  a  sufficient  time 
without  distraction,  the  subject  begins  to  lose  consciousness 
in  a  progressive  way.  Generalizing  this  simple  experiment, 
we  may  say  that  any  method  or  device  which  serves  to  secure 
undivided  and  prolonged  attention  to  any  kind  of  a  '  sugges- 
tion,' —  be  it  object,  idea,  anything  that  can  be  thought 
about,  —  this  brings  on  what  is  called  hypnosis  to  a  person 
normally  constituted. 

The  Paris  school  of  interpreters  find  three  stages  of  progress 
in  the  hypnotic  sleep :  First,  catalepsy,  characterized  by  rigid 
fixity  of  the  muscles  in  any  position  in  which  the  limbs  may 
be  put  by  the  experimenter,  with  great  suggestibility  on  the 
side  of  consciousness,  and  anaesthesia  in  certain  areas  of  the 
skin  and  in  certain  of  the  special  senses;  second,  lethargy, 
in  which  consciousness  seems  to  disappear  entirely,  the  sub- 
ject cannot  be  aroused  by  any  sense  stimulation  by  eye,  ear, 
skin,  etc.,  and  the  body  is  flabby  and  pliable  as  in  natural  sleep ; 
third,  somnambulism,  so  called  from  its  analogies  to  the 
ordinary  sleep-walking  condition  to  which  many  persons  are 
subject.  This  last  covers  the  phenomena  of  ordinary  mes- 
meric exhibitions  at  which  travelling  mesmerists  'control' 
persons  before  audiences  and  make  them  obey  their  com- 
mands. While  other  scientists  properly  deny  these  distinct 
stages  as  such,  they  may  yet  be  taken  as  representing  ex- 
treme instances  of  the  phenomena,  and  serve  as  points  of 
departure  for  further  discussion. 

On  the  mental  side  the  general  characteristics  of  hypnotic 
somnambulism  are  as  follows:  i.  The  impairing  of  memory 
in  a  peculiar  way.  In  the  hypnotic  condition  all  affairs  of 
the  ordinary  life  are  forgotten;  on  the  other  hand,  after 
waking,  the  events  of  the  hypnotic  condition  are  forgotten. 
Further,  in  any  subsequent  period  of  hypnosis  the  events  of 


Hypnotic   Suggestion  1 5 1 

the  former  similar  periods  are  remembered.  So  a  person 
who  is  habitually  hypnotized  has  two  continuous  memories; 
one  for  the  events  of  his  normal  life,  only  when  he  is  normal, 
and  one  for  the  events  of  his  hypnotic  periods,  only  when  he  is 
hypnotized. 

2.  Suggestibility  to  a  remarkable  degree.  By  this  is  meant 
the  tendency  of  the  subject  to  have  in  reality  any  mental  con- 
dition which  is  suggested  to  him.  He  is  subject  to  sugges- 
tions both  on  the  side  of  his  receptivity  to  impressions  and 
on  the  side  of  action.  He  will  see,  hear,  remember,  believe, 
refuse  to  see,  hear,  etc.,  anything,  with  some  doubtful  excep- 
tions, which  may  be  suggested  to  him  by  word  or  deed,  or 
even  by  the  slightest  and  perhaps  unconscious  indications  of 
those  about  him.  On  the  side  of  conduct  his  suggestibility 
is  equally  remarkable.  Not  only  will  he  act  in  harmony 
with  the  illusions  of  sight,  etc.,  suggested  to  him,  but  he 
will  carry  out,  like  an  automaton,  the  actions  suggested  to 
him.  Further,  pain,  pleasure,  and  the  organic  accompani- 
ments of  them  may  be  produced  by  suggestion.  The  arm 
may  be  actually  scarred  with  a  lead-pencil  if  the  patient  be 
told  that  it  is  red-hot  iron.  A  suggested  pain  brings  vaso- 
motor  and  other  bodily  changes  that  prove,  as  similar  tests 
in  the  other  cases  prove,  that  simulation  is  impossible  and 
the  phenomena  are  real.  These  phenomena  and  those  given 
below  are  no  longer  based  on  the  mere  reports  of  the 
'  mesmerists/  but  are  the  recognized  property  of  legitimate 
psychology. 

Again,  such  suggestions  may  be  for  a  future  time,  and 
get  themselves  performed  only  when  a  determined  interval 
has  elapsed;  they  are  then  called  deferred  or  post-hypnotic 
suggestions.  Post-hypnotic  suggestions  are  those  which  in- 
clude the  command  not  to  perform  them  until  a  certain  time 
after  the  subject  has  returned  to  his  normal  condition ;  such 


152  Suggestion 

suggestions  are  —  if  of  reasonably  trifling  character  — 
actually  carried  out  afterward  in  the  normal  state,  although 
the  person  is  conscious  of  no  reason  why  he  should  act  in 
such  a  way,  having  no  remembrance  whatever  that  he  had 
received  the  suggestion  when  hypnotized.  Such  post-hyp- 
notic performances  may  be  deferred  by  suggestion  for  many 
months. 

3.  So-called  exaltation  of  the  mental  faculties,  especially 
of  the  senses :  increased  acuteness  of  vision,  hearing,  touch, 
memory,  and  the  mental  functions  generally.     By  reason  of 
this  great  'exaltation,'  hypnotized  patients  may  get  sugges- 
tions which  are  not  intended,  from  experimenters,  and  dis- 
cover their  intentions  when  every  effort  is  made  to  conceal 
them.     Often  emotional  changes  in  expression  are  discerned 
by  them;   and  if  it  be  admitted  that  their  power  of  logical 
and  imaginative  insight  is  correspondingly  exalted,  there  is 
practically  no  limit  to  the  patient's  ability  to  read,  simply 
from  physical  indications,  the  mental  states  of  those  who 
experiment  with  him. 

4.  So-called  rapport.      This    term    covers   all   the   facts 
known,  before   the   subject   was   scientifically  investigated, 
by  such  expressions  as  '  personal  magnetism/  '  will  power ' 
over  the  subject,  etc.     It  is  true  that  one  particular  operator 
alone  may  be  able  to  hypnotize  a  particular  patient;  and  in 
this  case  the  patient  is,  when  hypnotized,  open  to  sugges- 
tions only  from  this  person.     He  is  deaf  and  blind  to  every- 
thing enjoined  by  any  one  else.     It  is  easy  to  see  from  what 
has  already  been  said  that  this  does  not  involve  any  occult 
nerve  influence  or  mental  power.     A  sensitive  patient  any- 
body can  hypnotize,  provided  only  that  the  patient  have  the 
idea   or  conviction   that   the   experimenter  possesses   such 
power.    Now,  let  a  patient  get  the  idea  that  only  one  man 
can  hypnotize  him,  and  that  is  the  beginning  of  the  hypnotic 


Hypnotic  Suggestion  153 

suggestion  itself.  It  is  a  part  of  the  suggestion  that  a  cer- 
tain personal  rapport  is  necessary;  so  the  patient  must  have 
this  rapport.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  when  such  a 
patient  is  hypnotized,  the  operator  in  rapport  with  him  can 
transfer  the  so-called  control  to  any  one  else  simply  by  sug- 
gesting to  the  patient  that  this  third  party  can  also  hypnotize 
him.  Rapport,  therefore,  and  all  the  amazing  claims  of 
charlatans  to  powers  of  charming,  stealing  another's  per- 
sonality, controlling  his  will  at  a  distance  —  all  such  claims 
are  explained,  as  far  as  they  have  anything  to  rest  upon,  by 
suggestion  under  conditions  of  mental  hyperaesthesia  or 
exaltation. 

I  may  now  add  certain  practical  remarks  which  may  tend 
to  mark  off  the  range  of  the  phenomena  more  clearly. 

In  general,  any  method  which  fixes  the  attention  to  a 
single  stimulus  long  enough  is  probably  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce hypnosis;  but  the  result  is  quick  and  profound  in  pro- 
portion as  the  patient  has  the  idea  that  it  is  going  to  succeed, 
i.e.  gets  the  suggestion  of  sleep.  It  may  be  said,  therefore, 
that  the  elaborate  performances,  such  as  passes,  rubbings, 
mysterious  incantations,  etc.,  often  resorted  to,  have  no  physi- 
ological effect  whatever,  and  only  serve  to  work  in  the  way 
of  suggestion  upon  the  mind  of  the  subject.  In  view  of  this 
it  is  probable  that  any  person  in  normal  health  can  be  hyp- 
notized, provided  he  is  not  too  sceptical  of  the  operator's 
knowledge  and  powers;  and,  on  the  contrary,  any  one  can 
hypnotize  another,  provided  he  do  not  arouse  too  great 
scepticism,  and  is  not  himself  wavering  and  clumsy.  It  is 
probable,  however,  that  susceptibility  varies  greatly  in  degree, 
and  that  race  exerts  an  important  influence.  Thus  in  Europe 
the  French  seem  to  be  the  most  susceptible,  and  the  English 
and  Scandinavians  the  least  so.  The  impression  that  weak- 
minded  persons  are  most  available  is  quite  mistaken.  On 


154  Suggestion 

the  contrary,  patients  in  the  insane  asylums,  idiots,  etc.,  are 
the  most  refractory.  This  is  to  be  expected,  from  the  fact 
that  in  these  cases  power  of  strong,  steady  attention  is  want- 
ing. The  only  one  class  of  pathological  cases  which  seem 
peculiarly  open  to  the  hypnotic  influence  is  that  of  the 
hystero-epileptics,  whose  tendencies  are  toward  extreme 
suggestibility.  Further,  one  may  hypnotize  himself  —  so- 
called  auto-suggestion  —  especially  after  having  been  put  into 
the  trance  more  than  once  by  others.1 

So-called  'criminal  suggestions'  may  be  made,  with  more 
or  less  effect,  in  the  hypnotic  state.  Cases  have  been  tried 
in  the  French  courts,  in  which  evidence  for  and  against  such 
influence  of  a  third  person  over  the  criminal  has  been  ad- 
mitted. The  reality  of  the  phenomenon,  however,  is  in  dis- 
pute. The  Paris  school  claims  that  criminal  acts  can  be 
suggested  to  the  hypnotized  subject  which  are  just  as  certain 
to  be  performed  by  him  as  any  other  acts.  Such  a  subject 
will  discharge  a  blank-loaded  pistol  at  any  one,  when  told  to 

1  It  is  further  evident  that  frequent  hypnotization  is  very  damaging  if  done 
by  the  same  operator,  since  then  the  patient  contracts  a  habit  of  responding 
to  the  same  class  of  suggestions ;  and  this  may  influence  his  normal  life.  A 
further  danger  arises  from  the  possibility  that  all  suggestions  have  not  been 
removed  from  the  patient's  mind  before  his  awaking.  Competent  scientific 
observers  always  make  it  a  point  to  do  this.  It  is  possible  also  that  damaging 
effects  result  directly  to  a  man  from  frequent  hypnotizing;  and  this  is  prob- 
able to  a  degree,  simply  from  the  fact  that  the  state  is  abnormal  and,  while  it 
lasts,  pathological.  Consequently,  all  general  exhibitions  in  public,  as  well 
as  all  individual  exercises  of  this  kind,  should  be  prohibited  by  law,  and  the 
whole  practical  application,  as  well  as  observation  of  hypnosis  should  be 
left  in  the  hands  of  physicians  and  scientific  men  who  have  proved  their 
competence  and  fitness. 

Farther,  Lie"geois  suggests  —  what  is  quite  an  unnecessary  resource  — 
that  every  child  should  be  hypnotized  by  a  special  official,  and  the  suggestion 
made  to  him,  once  for  all,  that  no  one  under  any  circumstances  shall  be  able 
to  throw  him  into  hypnosis  again.  In  Russia,  a  decree  (summer,  1893)  per- 
mits physicians  to  practise  hypnotism  for  purposes  of  cure  under  official  cer- 
tificates. In  France  public  exhibitions  are  forbidden. 


Hypnotic  Suggestion  155 

do  so,  or  stab  him  with  a  paper  dagger.  While  admitting 
the  facts,  the  Nancy  theorists  claim  that  the  subject  knows 
the  performance  to  be  a  farce;  gets  suggestions  of  the  un- 
reality of  it  from  the  experimenters,  and  so  acquiesces.  This 
is  probably  true,  as  is  seen  in  frequent  cases  in  which  patients 
have  refused,  in  the  hypnotic  sleep,  to  perform  suggested  acts 
which  shocked  their  modesty,  veracity,  etc.  This  goes  to 
show  that  the  Nancy  school  are  right  in  saying  that  while, 
in  hypnosis,  suggestibility  is  exaggerated  to  an  enormous 
degree,  still  it  has  limits  in  the  more  well-knit  habits,  moral 
sentiments,  social  opinions,  etc.,  of  the  subjects.  And  it 
further  shows  that  hypnosis  is  probably,  as  they  claim,  a 
temporary  disturbance,  rather  than  a  pathological  condition 
of  mind  and  body. 

There  have  been  many  remarkable  and  sensational  cases 
of  cure  of  disease  by  hypnotic  suggestion  reported,  espe- 
cially in  France.  That  hysteria  in  all  its  manifold  mani- 
festations has  been  relieved  is  certainly  true,  but  that  any 
organic,  structural  disease  has  ever  been  cured  by  hypnotism 
is  unproven.  It  is  not  regarded  by  medical  authorities  as  an 
agent  of  much  therapeutic  value,  and  is  rarely  employed; 
but  it  is  doubtful,  in  view  of  the  natural  prejudice  caused 
by  the  pretensions  of  charlatans,  whether  its  merits  have 
been  fairly  tested.1 

1  On  the  European  continent  it  has  been  successfully  applied  in  a  great 
variety  of  cases;  and  Bernheim  has  shown  that  minor  nervous  troubles, 
insomnia,  migraines,  drunkenness,  lighter  cases  of  rheumatism,  sexual  and 
digestive  disorders,  together  with  a  host  of  smaller  temporary  causes  of  pain — 
corns,  cricks  in  back  and  side,  etc.  —  may  be  cured  or  very  materially  alle- 
viated by  suggestions  conveyed  in  the  hypnotic  state.  In  many  cases  such 
are  permanently  effected  with  aid  from  no  other  remedies.  In  a  number  of 
great  city  hospitals,  patients  of  recognized  classes  are  at  once  hypnotized 
and  suggestions  of  cure  made.  Liebault,  the  founder  of  the  Nancy  school, 
has  the  credit  of  having  first  made  use  of  hypnosis  as  a  remedial  agent.  It  is 
also  becoming  more  and  more  recognized  as  a  method  of  controlling  refractory 


156  Suggestion 

Theory.  —  Two  rival  theories  are  held  as  to  the  general 
character  of  hypnosis.  The  Paris  school  already  referred  to, 
led  by  Charcot,  hold  that  it  is  a  pathological  condition  which 
can  be  induced  only  in  patients  already  mentally  diseased,  or 
having  neuropathic  tendencies.  They  claim  that  the  three 
stages  described  above  are  a  discovery  of  great  importance.1 
The  so-called  Nancy  school,  on  the  other  hand,  led  by  Bern- 
heim,  deny  the  pathological  character  of  hypnosis  altogether, 
claiming  that  the  hypnotic  condition  is  nothing  more  than  a 
special  form  of  ordinary  sleep  brought  on  artificially  by 
suggestion.  Suggestion,  they  say,  is  only  an  exaggeration 
of  an  influence  to  which  all  persons  are  normally  subject. 
All  the  variations,  stages,  curious  phenomena,  etc.,  of  the 
Paris  school,  say  they,  can  be  explained  by  this  'suggestion' 
hypothesis.  The  Nancy  school  is  completely  victorious,  as 
far  -as  the  great  mass  of  the  facts  are  concerned.2 

The  facts  show  an  intimacy  of  interaction  between  mind 
and  body,  to  which  current  psychology  in  its  psycho-physical 
theories  is  only  beginning  to  do  justice ;  and  it  is  this  aspect 
of  the  whole  matter  which  I  would  emphasize  in  this  connec- 
tion. It  will  be  observed  that  all  the  phases  of  'suggestion' 
passed  in  review  in  earlier  sections  of  this  chapter  get  direct 
illustration  from  similar  phenomena  occurring  in  hypnosis. 
I  need  not  cite  them  again  in  detail.  The  hypnotic  condition 

and  violent  patients  in  asylums  and  reformatory  institutions.  It  must  be 
added,  however,  that  'in  general'  psychological  theory  rather  than  medical 
practice  is  seriously  concerning  itself  with  this  subject. 

1  The  best  books  on  this  side  are,  Binet  and  Fere",  Animal  Magnetism; 
Janet,  Automatisme  Psychologique;    Charcot's  medical  treatises  (CEuvres 
completes,  Vol.  IX.);   numerous  articles  in  the  Revue  Philosophique. 

2  Their  best  books  are,  Moll,  Hypnotism;  Rerriheim,  Suggestive  Therapeu- 
tics; £tudes  nouvelles  sur  I'Hypnotisme;  Ochorowicz,   Mental   Suggestion. 
Cf.   my  popular  articles  'Among  the  Psychologists  of  Paris'  and  'With 
Bernheim  at  Nancy'  in  the  Nation  (N.Y.),  July  28  and  Aug.  u,  1892,  and 

Hypnotism '  in  the  new  edition  (1894)  of  Johnson's  Universal  Cyclopadia. 


Law  of  Dynamogenesis  157 

of  consciousness  may,  therefore,  be  taken  to  represent  the 
thing  called  '  suggestion '  most  remarkably. 

§  8.  Law  of  Dynamogenesis 

The  facts  of  suggestion  now  given  may  be  generalized 
under  a  so-called  'law,'  which  current  psychology  and 
biology  agree  in  accepting  as  a  well-established  principle 
of  the  manifestations  of  organic  and  mental  life.  The  prin- 
ciple of  contractility  recognized  in  biology  simply  states  that 
all  stimulations  to  living  matter,  —  from  protoplasm  to  the 
highest  vegetable  and  animal  structures,  —  if  they  take  effect 
at  all,  tend  to  bring  about  movements  or  contractions  in  the 
mass  of  the  organism.  This  is  now  also  safely  established 
as  a  phenomenon  of  consciousness  —  that  every  sensation  or 
incoming  process  tends  to  bring  about  action  or  outgoing 
process.  The  facts  of  suggestion  now  set  forth  may  be 
taken  as,  in  so  far,  an  array  of  evidence  in  support  of  what 
we  may  call,  once  for  all,  Dynamogenesis.  Certain  practical 
illustrations  of  it  are  given  in  the  chapters  which  immediately 
precede:  they  show  also  the  sure  foundation  of  the  method 
of  studying  children  which  I  have  based  upon  it.  I  shall 
accordingly  expect  no  opposition  to  the  use  of  this  principle 
as  the  foundation-stone  of  the  theory  of  organic  development 
developed  subsequently  in  this  work,  however  faulty  my 
presentation  of  it  may  be  in  the  eyes  of  competent  critics  in 
either  of  these  sciences. 

In  attempting,  however,  to  reach  some  kind  of  formula 
of  dynamogenesis  we  encounter  a  certain  difficulty.  For 
when  we  had  occasion  to  inquire  in  an  earlier  place  what 
the  main  character  of  all  suggestion  is,  that  character  which 
constitutes  its  suggestion,  we  found  definitions  very  con- 
flicting ;  and  gave  as  our  own  definition  only  the  most  general 


158  Suggestion 

description  of  the  reaction  called  suggestive,  i.e.  that  it  in- 
volved consciousness  and  issues  in  a  movement  more  or  less 
closely  associated  in  earlier  experience  with  the  particular 
stimulus  in  question.1 

This,  it  is  plain,  constitutes  suggestion  a  phenomenon  of 
greater  or  less  habit,  taking  hypnotic  suggestion  as  type,  in 
which  prompt  discharges  in  well-formed  pathways  is  the  strik- 
ing fact.  Numerous  instances  among  the  facts  reported  in  this 
chapter  come  to  mind.  The  statement  ordinarily  made  in  the 
more  recent  psychologies,  to  the  effect  that  the  idea  of  a  move- 
ment is  already  the  beginning  of  that  movement,  serves  to  gen- 
eralize these  facts,  provided  we  understand  by  the  'idea  of 
movement,'  not  merely  the  clear  consciousness  of  a  movement, 
but  also  the  vaguest  and  most  subconscious  reminiscences, 
feelings,  intimations  of  movement,  which  cluster  or  hang  about 
or  enter  into,  however  meagrely,  the  state  of  mind  which 
issues  in  the  movement  making  up  the  suggested  reaction. 

But  it  is  just  as  evident,  when  we  recall  the  various  in- 
stances in  detail,  that  they  have  another  and  different  aspect. 
Very  many  suggestions  seem  to  perform  a  function  which  is 
not  exhausted  when  we  say  that  they  issue  in  movements. 
They  issue  in  movements,  it  is  true ;  but  not  in  exactly  the 
movements  and  those  alone  which  have  been  associated  with 
these  stimuli  before.  Many  of  them  seem  to  beget  new  move- 
ments, by  a  kind  of  adaptation  of  the  organism  —  movements 
which  are  an  evident  improvement  upon  those  which  the 
organism  has  formerly  accomplished. 

To  make  this  plain  we  have  only  to  recall  some  cases  from 

1  We  may  distinguish  dynamogenesis  from  suggestion  by  saying  that  the 
former  is  the  broader,  —  the  fact  that  changes  in  movement  always  follow 
changes  in  stimulus.  Suggestion,  on  the  other  hand,  defines  the  particular 
change  that  issues  from  a  particular  stimulus  of  a  sort  that  is  accompanied 
by  consciousness. 


Law  of  Dynamogenesis  159 

the  reports  made  in  this  chapter  and  the  earlier  ones.  The 
child  learns  handwriting  by  acting  upon  the  suggestion  which 
the  copy  set  before  him  affords.  How  could  he  control  his 
movements  at  all,  if  each  suggestion  called  out  only  the  move- 
ments which  he  had  already  learned?  The  child  adapts 
himself  again  to  persons,  and  differently  to  different  persons, 
from  week  to  week.  How  does  he  do  this?  Persons  of 
course  suggest  action  to  him,  but  how  does  he  manage  to 
break  up,  in  appropriate  ways,  the  fixed  organic  tendencies  to 
action  in  which  we  have  found  early  bashf ulness  to  consist  ? 
The  child  learns  to  estimate  distance,  and  his  visual  experi- 
ences become,  as  we  have  seen,  suggestions  to  him  of  hand 
movements  remarkably  adjusted  to  his  reach  and  to  the 
dimensions,  etc.,  of  things.  How  is  this  done?  And  so 
might  more  cases  be  cited. 

This  aspect  of  suggestion  opens  up  what  is  one  of  the  main 
problems  of  this  book  to  discuss,  the  theory  of  Accommodation. 
It  is  only  in  point  here  to  show  that  this  thing,  accommodation, 
is  a  fact,  and  that  it  consists  in  some  influence  in  the  organism 
which  works  directly  in  the  face  of  habit.  Suggestion  works 
to  break  up  habit. 

We  saw  above,  also,  two  views  as  to  the  presence  and 
influence  of  consciousness  in  this  matter  of  suggestion.  Some 
theorists  hold  that  there  is  no  suggestion  without  conscious- 
ness; others  that  consciousness  is  not  a  necessary  element. 
The  dispute  seems  to  turn  upon  the  predominant  recognition 
in  reactions  of  one  of  the  two  tendencies,  Habit  or  Accommo- 
dation. It  is  true  and  universal  that  consciousness  tends 
to  disappear  from  reactions  as  they  are  oftener  repeated  — 
as  they  become,  that  is,  more  habitual.  The  things  we  have 
learned  to  do  best,  most  definitely,  most  exactly,  must  un- 
alterably in  a  word,  these  things  require  least  thought,  direc- 
tion, feeling,  consciousness.  So  with  our  reflex  and  semi- 


1 60  Suggestion 

automatic  actions :  they  come  to  go  on,  as  pathological  cases 
show,  without  the  cortex  of  the  brain,  in  cases  when  fainting 
or  forgetf ulness  deprive  us  of  all  knowledge  that  we  do  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  find  that  whenever  there  is  accommo- 
dation —  the  breaking  up  of  habit,  the  effort  to  learn,  the 
acquirement  of  new  movements,  and  co-ordinations  of  move- 
ment —  there  consciousness  is  present,  and  present  in  vivid 
and  heightened  form  according  as  the  habit  fought  against  is 
fixed,  and  the  road  to  the  new  acquisition  an  uphill  road. 
The  things  most  new,  difficult,  imperfect,  hard  to  effect,  these 
dwell  in  the  very  focus  of  our  personal  knowledge  and  at- 
tention. 

As  I  said  some  time  ago,  in  summing  up  the  two  differ- 
ent principles:  "Physiologically,  Habit  means  readiness 
for  function,  produced  by  previous  exercise  of  that  function. 
.  .  .  Psychologically,  it  means  loss  of  oversight,  diffusion 
of  attention,  subsiding  consciousness.  .  .  .  Physiologically 
and  anatomically,  Accommodation  means  the  breaking  up  of 
a  habit,  the  widening  of  the  organic  for  the  reception  or  ac- 
commodation of  a  new  condition.  Psychologically,  it  means 
reviving  consciousness,  concentration  of  attention,  voluntary 
control."  1 

So  far  as  we  have  now  gone  we  have  a  right  to  use  the  prin- 
ciple of  suggestion,  and  to  illustrate  the  broader  principle  of 
dynamogenesis,  whenever  we  mean  to  say  simply  that  action 
follows  stimulus.  But  when  we  come  to  ask  what  kind  of 
action  follows,  in  each  case,  each  special  kind  of  stimulus,  we 
have  two  possibilities  before  us.  A  habit  may  follow,  or  an 
accommodation  may  follow.  Which  is  it?  And  why  is  it 
one  rather  than  the  other?  These  are  the  questions  of  the 
theory  of  organic  development,  to  which  our  next  chapters  are 
devoted. 

1  Handbook,  Feeling  and  Witt,  p.  49. 


PART   II 

BIOLOGICAL  GENESIS 

CHAPTER    VII 

THE  THEORY  OF  DEVELOPMENT1 
§  i.   Organic  Adaptation  in  General 

IN  the  preceding  discussions  we  have  traced  some  phases 
of  the  development  of  consciousness.  The  two  great  prin- 
ciples of  Habit  and  Accommodation  have  been  noted,  simply, 
and  we  have  intimated  incidentally  that  by  them  two  great 
gains  are  made  possible  to  the  organism :  first,  the  repetition 
of  what  is  worth  repeating,  with  the  conserving  of  this  worth : 
this  is  Habit ;  and,  second,  the  adaptation  of  the  organism  to 
new  conditions,  so  that  it  secures,  progressively,  further  useful 
reactions,  which  at  an  earlier  stage  would  have  been  im- 
possible: this  is  Accommodation.  It  now  remains  to  give 
these  two  principles  a  searching  examination. 

Further,  the  fundamental  fact  of  reaction  itself,  at  what- 
ever stage  it  be  looked  at,  is  expressed  by  the  principle  of 
Dynamogenesis,  which,  when  put  broadly,  reads:  Every 
organic  stimulus  tends  to  bring  about  changes  in  movement. 
This  we  have  illustrated  in  the  preceding  chapters. 

The  psychological  bearings  of  these  principles  are  taken 

1  Development  is  here  used  in  the  general  sense  as  covering  both  racial 
evolution  and  individual  development.     The  problem  of  evolution  as  such 
is  now  explicitly  treated  in  the  work,  Development  and  Evolution  (1902). 
M  161 


1 62  The  Theory  of  Development 

up  below.  It  remains  to  ask  here  whether  we  can  go  farther 
in  a  constructive  way  on  the  physiological  side. 

A  little  reflection  leads  us  to  see  that  the  main  question 
of  adaptation  is  still  unanswered.  It  is  evident  that  repe- 
titions plus  accommodations  give  adaptations;  and  that  ad- 
aptations involve,  in  some  way,  so-called  'selections.'  Where 
in  the  function  of  the  organism  does  the  remarkable  fact 
of  selection  come  in?  How  does  the  organism  select  the 
proper  things  to  accommodate  itself  to,  and  refuse  the  im- 
proper? 

The  real  meaning  of  this  question  becomes  clear  when 
we  put  it  differently.  Considering  the  state  of  an  organism 
at  any  moment,  with  its  readiness  to  act  in  an  appropriate 
fashion,  —  say  a  child's  imitation  of  a  movement,  —  the 
appropriateness  of  its  action  may  be  construed  in  either  of  two 
ways :  either  retrospectively  or  prospectively.  By  construing 
it  retrospectively,  I  mean  that  an  organism  performs  its  ap- 
propriate function  when  it  does  what  it  has  done  before  — 
what  it  is  suited  to  do,  however  it  may  have  come  to  be  so 
suited.  The  child  imitates  my  movement  because  his  ap- 
paratus is  ready  for  this  movement.  This  is  Habit ;  it  pro- 
ceeds by  repetition.  But  when  we  come  to  ask  how  it  got 
to  be  suited  to  do  this  function  the  first  time,  or  how  it  can 
come  to  do  a  new  function  from  now  on,  —  how  the  child 
manages  to  imitate  a  new  movement,  one  which  he  has  never 
made  before, — this  is  the  prospective  reference,  and  this  ques- 
tion we  must  now  try  to  answer. 

To  illustrate  from  the  highest  sphere,  that  of  the  volun- 
tary learning  of  new  actions:  Suppose  I  see  a  man  draw  a 
picture,  or  paint  a  landscape,  and  realize  that  it  represents 
a  very  useful  accommodation  of  muscular  movements,  and 
then  desire  to  imitate  him.  I  am  not  able  simply  to  tell  my 
muscles  to  do  it,  or  simply  to  will  to  do  what  he  does.  I  find 


Organic  Adaptation  in  General  163 

my  muscles  are  chained  down  to  what  I  have  already  learned, 
to  what  they  have  done  before ;  my  actions,  that  is,  have  the 
retrospective  reference.  So  the  child  sees  me  write  a  letter  or 
cut  a  toothpick,  and  he  is  quite  unable  to  do  it.  He  must 
learn,  we  say.  But  that  is  just  the  question  of  prospective 
reference:  how  is  he  to  learn?  How  is  it  possible  for  an 
organism  to  acquire  any  new  adaptive  movement  whatever? 

When  we  come  to  look  broadly  at  the  biological  series  and 
take  all  the  resources  of  modern  evolution  doctrine  into  ac- 
count, we  find  several  ways  in  which  the  reactions  of  an  organ- 
ism may  get  such  a  '  prospective  reference,'  all  of  which  are 
partial  statements  of  a  more  fundamental  one,  and  each  of 
which  has  its  peculiar  value  in  its  own  place  in  the  phylo- 
genetic  series.  These  different  ways  in  which  an  organism 
'learns'  new  accommodations  may  be  set  forth  in  order. 

i.  Natural  selection  as  operative  directly  upon  individual 
organisms.  If  we  suppose,  at  first,  organisms  capable  of 
reacting  to  stimulations  by  random  diffused  movement,  we 
may  then  suppose  the  stimuli  to  which  they  react  to  be  some 
beneficial  and  some  injurious.  If  the  beneficial  ones  recur 
more  frequently  to  some  organisms,  these  would  live  rather 
than  others  to  which  damaging  stimuli  came  more  often. 
The  former,  therefore,  would  be  selected ;  and  it  amounts  to 
the  same  thing  as  if  organisms  of  neutral  character  had 
learned,  each  for  itself,  to  react  to  certain  beneficial  stimuli 
only.  This  is  the  current  Darwinian  position. 

But  we  may  go  a  step  further.  Assuming  variations  in 
organic  forms,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  some  of  them  might  react 
in  a  way  to  keep  in  contact  with  the  stimulus,  to  lay  hold  on  it, 
and  so  keep  on  reacting  to  it  again  and  again  — just  as  our 
rhythmic  action  in  breathing  keeps  the  organism  in  vital  con- 
tact with  the  oxygen  of  the  air.  These  organisms  would  get 
all  the  benefit  or  damage  of  the  repetition  or  persistence  of  the 


164  The   Theory  of  Development 

stimulation  and  of  their  own  reactions,  again  and  again ;  and 
it  is  self-evident  that  the  beneficial  stimulations  are  the  ones 
which  should  be  maintained  in  this  way,  and  that  the  organ- 
isms which  did  this  would  live.  The  organisms  which  reacted 
in  such  a  way  as  to  retain  the  damaging  stimulations,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  this  same  process,  would  aid  nature  in  killing 
themselves.  If  this  be  true,  only  those  organisms  would 
survive  which  had  the  variation  of  retaining  useful  stimu- 
lations in  what  I  have  called  in  speaking  of  imitation  else- 
where a '  circular  way '  of  reacting.  Thus  unicellular  creatures 
of  this  particular  kind  were  selected,  we  may  suppose,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  from  absolutely  random-moving  creatures,  if 
any  such  existed  —  a  point  discussed  below.  And  as  all 
others  died  out  in  competition  with  them,  it  became  a  univer- 
sal property  of  vital  organisms  of  any  degree  of  development 
that  they  should  react  to  retain  their  own  vital  stimulations. 
Now  this  again  is  exactly  the  same  result  as  if  originally  neu- 
tral organisms  had  each  for  itself  learned  to  make  this  partic- 
ular kind  of  reaction.  The  life  principle  has  learned  it,  but 
with  the  help  of  the  stimulating  environment  and  natural 
selection.1 

But  the  question  remains :  what  kind  of  reaction  would  it 
be  that  such  a  creature  would  possess  to  accomplish  this 
result?  What  would  be  the  nature  of  the  variation?  Evi- 
dently the  easiest  answer  to  this  question  is,  that  consciousness 
with  its  selective  property  arises  here,  and  by  it  new  actions 
are  selected.2  But  I  do  not  see  how  consciousness  could  ac- 
complish the  fact  of  selection,  even  though  it  arose  as  a  varia- 
tion, until  after  it  had  itself  experienced  the  reaction  to  be 

1  More  is  said  of  this  below  in  §  2  of  this  chapter,  and  in  Chap.  IX.,  where 
particular  evidence  is  cited. 

2  Something  of  this  sort  seems  implied  in  the  '  subjective  selection '  of 
J.  Ward  (art.  'Psychology,'  in  the  Encycl.  Brit.,  loth  ed.). 


Organic  Adaptation  in  General  165 

selected.  This  would  mean  that  it  had  some  property  of 
selecting  out  during  the  organism's  life  history  certain  kinds 
of  reaction  already  possible  to  this  particular  organism.  But 
since  it  is  possible  for  an  organism  to  have  the  stimulus-re- 
taining reactions  which  I  have  described,  simply  by  its  own 
responses,  this  may  be  considered  sufficient  for  its  survival 
anyhow,  whether  it  were  conscious  or  not.  So  I  see  no  argu- 
ment one  way  or  the  other  as  to  the  origin  of  consciousness  at 
this  first  stage  of  natural  selection.  The  case  is  different, 
however,  when  we  come  to  consider  development  during  the 
life  history  of  the  particular  organism. 

2.  Natural  selection  as  operative  upon  different  reactions 
of  the  same  organism.  The  fact  of  '  life  history '  is  just  what 
distinguishes  an  organism  from  what  is  a  'mechanical  ar- 
rangement,' and  not  an  organism.  A  steam  engine  has  no 
life  history  because  it  makes  no  progress,  it  simply  repeats 
a  constant  function.  That  engine  survives  which  is  best 
adapted,  in  its  construction,  to  the  function  of  an  engine. 
That  is  the  principle  already  cited.  It  is  necessary  to  consider 
further  how  certain  reactions  of  one  single  organism  can  be 
selected  so  as  to  adapt  the  organism  better  and  give  it  a  life 
history.  Let  us  at  the  outset  call  this  process  'functional 
selection,' 1  in  contrast  with  the  '  natural  selection'  of  whole 
organisms. 

Our  first  principle  would  do  no  more  than  effect  the  survival 
of  organisms  which  repeated  or  retained  useful  stimulations. 
If  this  worked  alone,  every  change  in  the  environment  would 
weed  out  all  life  except  those  organisms  which  by  accidental 
variation  reacted  already  in  the  way  demanded  by  the  changed 

1  In  earlier  editions  this  was  called  '  Organic  Selection,'  but  later  (in 
Development  and  Evolution)  this  term  was  confined  to  the  result  of  the 
process  in  directing  the  course  of  evolution  (a  matter,  of  course,  already 
intended  here). 


1 66  The  Theory  of  Development 

conditions  —  in  every  case  new  organisms  showing  variations, 
not  in  any  case  new  elements  of  life  history  in  the  old  organ- 
isms. In  order  to  the  latter,  we  would  have  to  conceive  one 
of  two  things:  either,  first,  an  innate  capacity  of  the  organ- 
ism to  anticipate  and  be  ready  for  new  conditions ;  or  second, 
some  modification  of  the  old  reactions  in  an  organism  through 
the  influence  of  new  conditions,  in  such  a  way  that  this  modi- 
fied reaction  serves  to  retain  the  desirable  stimulations  of  the 
environment,  while  the  old  ways  of  reacting  do  not.  The  first 
of  these  two  conceptions  might  be  realized  in  turn  by  either 
of  two  alternatives:  first,  by  heredity;  and  second,  by  the 
special  creation  of  each  organism  for  its  peculiar  environment. 
But  the  first  of  these,  besides  being  excluded  by  our  hypothesis 
that  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  the  phylogenetic  series,  would 
leave  over  the  question :  How  did  the  ancestors  come  to  be 
adapted?  And  the  second  calls  upon  us  to  give  up  the  con- 
ception of  phylogeny  altogether.  We  are,  accordingly,  left 
to  the  view  that  the  new  stimulations  brought  by  changes 
in  the  environment,  themselves  modify  the  reactions  of  an 
organism  in  such  a  way  that  these  modified  reactions  serve 
to  hold  or  repeat  the  new  stimulations  as  far  as  they  are  good, 
and  further,  negatively,  in  such  a  way  that  the  former  reactions 
become  under  the  new  condition  less  useful  or  positively 
damaging. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  earlier  application  of  natural  selec- 
tion directly  to  the  salvation  of  organisms  meets  this  case  also, 
provided  organic  forms  arise  by  variation  which  are  suited  to 
react  to  the  new  environment.  And  it  is  possible  to  hold, 
I  think,  that  some  phylogenetic  progress  in  development  is 
secured  in  that  way,  a  point  which  has  further  discussion 
below.  But  the  facts  show,  at  any  rate,  that  individual  or- 
ganisms do  acquire  new  adaptations  in  their  lifetime,  and  that 
is  our  first  problem.  If,  in  solving  it,  we  find  a  principle 


Organic  Adaptation  in  General  167 

which  may  also  serve  as  a  principle  of  race  development,  then 
we  may  possibly  use  it  against  the  '  all-sufficiency  of  natural 
selection,'  or  in  its  support.1 

The  one  kind  of  organic  process  which  would  accomplish 
the  selection  of  reactions  in  an  organism's  life  history  is  the 
one  which  we  actually  find  —  which  is  to  say  that  our  theory 
waits  as  it  should  upon  facts.  There  is  a  process  by  which 
the  theatre  of  the  application  of  natural  selection  is  transferred 
from  the  outside  relations  of  the  organism,  its  relations  to  its 
environment,  to  the  inside  relations  of  the  organism.  It 
takes  the  form  of  the  functional  adjustment  of  the  life  pro- 
cesses by  variations  in  the  motor  responses,  so  that  beneficial 
reactions  are  selected  from  the  entire  mass  of  responses. 

This  process  seems  to  involve  —  to  state  a  further  point 
—  the  neurological  analogue  of  the  hedonic  consciousness;  and 
the  two  aspects  in  which  the  happy  variation  shows  itself  in 
the  consciousness  of  the  higher  organisms  are  pleasure  and 
pain.  These  points  may  be  summed  up  for  discussion  in  the 
general  proposition:  the  life  history  of  organisms  involves 
from  the  start  the  presence  of  the  organic  analogue  of  the 
hedonic  or  pleasure- pain  consciousness. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  is  clear  that,  in  order  to  life 
history  in  an  organism,  it  must  have  in  its  central  processes 
not  only  the  facile  function  required  by  habitual  discharge, 

1  This  passage  anticipates  the  explicit  development  of  'organic  selection' 
in  later  publications  —  the  view,  that  is,  that  individual  acc9mmodations, 
by  supplementing  certain  variations,  guide  evolution  in  definite  lines. 

I  know  a  further  objection  may  be  made,  and  it  may  be  as  well  to  state  it 
here,  while  reserving  its  discussion  for  a  later  place  (§  3  of  this  chapter). 
It  may  be  said  that  even  in  the  life  of  the  individual  new  actions  are  not 
acquired ;  they  simply  serve  in  the  individual  to  show  the  details  of  the  varia- 
tion which  the  individual  has  got  congenitally.  On  that  view  the  new  func- 
tions do  not  secure  gains  for  the  following  generation,  but  only  put  in  evidence 
the  variations  already  secured  over  the  earlier  generation :  so  certain  critics 
of  organic  selection,  e.g.  Whitman,  Plate,  etc. 


1 68  TJie   Theory  of  Development 

but  also  some  means  of  anticipating  new  stimulations,  and 
so  of  utilizing  them  to  its  own  advantage.  The  empirical 
analysis  of  pleasure  and  pain  states  requires  the  recognition 
of  these  two  facts,  on  any  theory  of  the  hedonic  consciousness, 
i.e.  first,  pleasure  accompanies  normal  psycho-physical  pro- 
cess, or  its  advancement  by  new  stimulations  which  are  vitally 
good;  and  second,  pain  accompanies  abnormal  psycho- 
physical  process,  or  the  anticipation  of  its  being  brought  about 
by  new  stimulations  which  are  vitally  bad.1  This  is  general- 
ized in  the  principles,  current  since  Bain  insisted  upon  them, 
that  pain  is  indicative  of  a  physiological  process  which  is  in- 
hibitory of  the  function  which  occasions  the  pain,  and  pleas- 
ure, on  the  other  hand,  advances  its  corresponding  function ; 
although,  as  I  aim  to  show  in  the  following  pages,  the  for- 
mulation of  Bain  requires  important  modifications.  In  a 
later  place  I  speak  further  of  the  rise  of  consciousness  as  this 
view  seems  to  implicate  it.2 

Advantage  has  now  been  seen  to  lie  in  reactions  by  which 
certain  stimulations  are  retairied  or  repeated  and  certain 
others  avoided.  Now  the  former  are  the  reactions  to  stimu- 
lations which  give  pleasure,  the  latter  reactions  to  those  which 
give  pain.  The  general  scheme  of  Meynert,  which  identifies 
the  pleasure-giving  process  with  the  central  innervation  of 
outreaching  movements,  and  the  pain-giving  process  similarly 
with  that  of  withdrawing  movements,  —  expansions  on  the 
one  hand,  and  contractions  on  the  other,  —  affords,  disre- 
garding details  which  I  need  not  now  dwell  upon,  support  to 
this  requirement.3  Richet  expresses  the  general  facts  very 

1  Baldwin,  Handbook  oj  Psychology,  II.,  Chaps.  V.,  XL  (in  substance). 

2  Cf.  §  4  of  this  chapter. 

3  Popular-wissenschaftliche   Vortrage,  pp.  41   ff.     Meynert's  theory  has 
recently  been  given  some  experimental  support  by  Miinsterberg,  Beitrage  zur 
exper.  Psych.,  Heft  4.     For  the  detailed  treatment  of  such  so-called  '  Organic 
Imitations,'  see  below,  Chap.  IX. 


Organic  Adaptation  in  General  169 

clearly ;  beginning  with  pain,  he  says :  "  There  takes  place  a 
series  of  general  movements  of  flexion,  as  if  the  animal  wished 
to  make  itself  smaller  and  to  offer  less  surface  to  the  pain.  .  .  . 
With  man,  as  with  all  other  animals,  we  find  the  same  general 
movements  of  flexion  and  extension,  corresponding  to  feelings 
of  pain  and  pleasure.  Pleasure  corresponds  to  a  movement 
of  spreading  out,  dilatation,  extension;  on  the  contrary,  in 
pain  we  draw  back,  shut  ourselves  up,  by  general  movements 
of  flexion."  * 

It  may  be  objected,  however,  that  this  does  not  meet  the 
need  of  anticipatory  adjustment;  and  such  an  objection  to 
Meynert's  own  view  is,  I  think,  well  taken.  Admitting  the 
probable  truth  of  the  theory  of  Meynert  as  far  as  it  goes,  and 
its  essential  conformity  to  the  requirements  of  a  true  theory 
of  motor  development,  we  may  further  find  from  the  two  cor- 
respondences mentioned  the  element  which  is  still  lacking, 
and  which  can  only  be  supplied  by  an  adequate  theory  of  the 
physical  basis  of  pleasure  and  pain. 

If  development  is  by  repetition,  and  if  repetition  can  be 
secured,  apart  from  accident,  only  by  a  functional  variation  of 
the  type  called  'circular  reaction/  or  one  which  repeats  or 
retains  its  own  stimulation,  then  a  new  stimulus  can  be  ac- 
commodated to  only  within  the  limits  inside  of  which  the 
organ  can  prepare  itself,  on  the  basis  of  former  processes,  to 
bring  about  such  a  reaction  as  will  tend  to  retain  this  kind 
of  stimulus  for  itself.  This  is  accomplished,  in  the  whole 
range  of  motor  accommodations,  from  the  protozoa 2  which 
swarm  to  the  light  to  the  most  difficult  feat  of  the  acrobat,  by 
what  we  may  generalize  under  the  phrase  '  law  of  excess ' ;  it 
is  an  application  within  the  organism  of  the  principle  upon 

1  UHomme  et  I' Intelligence,  p.  9,  quoted  by  Ward. 

2  This  is  now  interestingly  confirmed  by  the  valuable  researches  and  con- 
clusions of  Jennings  (Behaviour  of  Lower  Organisms,  1906). 


1 70  The  Theory  of  Development 

which  the  natural  selection  of  particular  organisms  is  secured 
—  the  principle  commonly  known  as  '  over-production.' 
But  generally,  the  law  of  'excess'  maybe  stated  somewhat 
as  follows :  ike  accommodation  of  an  organism  to  a  new  stimu- 
lation is  secured,  apart  from  happy  accidents,  by  the  continued 
or  repeated  action  of  that  stimulation,  and  this  repetition  is 
secured,  not  by  the  selection  beforehand  of  this  stimulation  nor 
of  appropriate  movements,  but  by  the  proximate  reinstatement  of 
it  by  a  discharge  of  the  energies  of  the  organism,  concentrated 
as  far  as  may  be  for  the  excessive  stimulation  of  the  organs 
most  nearly  fitted  by  former  habit  to  get  this  stimulation  again.1 
Assuming  that  such  a  supplement  to  the  current  psycho- 
physical  theories  of  pleasure-pain  is  necessary,  and  that  the 
details  are  left  open  of  what  the  actual  cellular  processes  are 
by  which  this  'excess  discharge'  is  secured,  our  task  is  to 
explain  and  justify  this  law  of  excess.  This  we  may  endeav- 
our to  do,  dividing  the  cases  of  Accommodation  or  Adapta- 
tion into  three  heads,  —  the  word  'adaptation'  being  used  as 
in  biology  for  the  fixed  results  of  accommodation  processes. 
We  will  have  to  show  that  the  three  great  stages  of  adapta- 
tion are  brought  under  the  formula  of  'functional  selection' 
by  means  of  the  auxiliary  principle  of  'excess.'2  To  make 
these  three  spheres  plain  to  psychologists  we  may  designate 
them  as,  first,  'biological  adaptations'  (modifications  of  struc- 
ture, of  instinct,  the  correlation  of  parts,  and  organic  adapta- 
tions in  general) ;  second,  the  reactions  in  which  so-called 
'reflex  attention'  dominates  (simple  imitation,  suggestive 
accommodation  and  control,  the  learning  of  infants  short 
of  voluntary  effort);  third,  the  conscious  selection  of  ends 

1  The  negative  of  concentration  or  its  reverse  supplies  the  conditions  of  re- 
treat from  a  damaging  stimulation  —  I  suppose  some  form  of  draining,  with 
Darwin's  'antithetic'  motor  action  and  Meynert's  Abwehrbewegungen. 

2  Natural  selection  being  of  course  assumed,  working  to  select  individuals 
of  the  'accommodating'  type. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation    171 

and  their  pursuit  by  volition  (voluntary  attention,  effortful 
action,  'conduct').  These  three  forms  of  adaptation  are 
treated  in  the  course  of  this  work  under  the  headings,  re- 
spectively, of  'Organic  Imitation,'  'Conscious  Imitation/ 
and  'Volition.'  If  successfully  made  out,  this  will  present 
to  us  a  theory  of  unity  in  the  motor  life,  and  an  addition  to 
the  evolution  theory  acceptable  to  psychologists. 

Before  proceeding  further,  however,  it  may  be  well  to  state 
the  theory  hitherto  principally  propounded  and  advocated  by 
psychologists,  as  well  as  by  biologists,  and  to  examine  it  in 
view  of  the  requirements  now  indicated;  this  comparison 
will  also  serve  to  bring  out  our  own  positions  more  clearly. 

§  2.  Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation 

It  is  clear  that  we  are  led  to  two  relatively  distinct  ques- 
tions: questions  which  are  now  familiar  to  us  when  put  in 
the  terms  covered  by  the  words  '  phylogenesis '  and  '  ontogene- 
sis.' First,  how  has  the  development  of  organic  life  proceeded, 
showing  constantly,  as  it  does,  forms  of  greater  complexity 
and  higher  adaptation?  This  is  the  phylogenetic  question; 
and  as  we  should  expect,  this  is  the  question  over  which 
biologists  have  had  their  most  earnest  and  lasting  controversy. 
This  is  also  the  question  that  has  mainly  interested  biologists. 
But  the  second  question,  the  ontogenetic  question,  is  of  equal 
importance :  the  question,  how  does  the  individual  organism 
manage  to  adjust  itself  better  and  better  to  its  environment  ? 
How  is  it  that  we,  or  the  brute,  or  the  amoeba,  can  learn  to  do 
anything?  This  is  the  question  which  has  interested  psy- 
chologists, so  far  as  they  have  shown  interest  in  genetic 
theories  —  an  interest  now  greatly  increased. 

This  latter  problem  is  the  most  urgent,  difficult,  and  inter- 
esting question  of  the  new  genetic  psychology.  How  can 


172  The  Theory  of  Development 

an  organism,  whether  with  or  without  consciousness,  ever, 
under  any  circumstances,  get  a  new  and  better-adapted  func- 
tion? This  is  the  inquiry  which  I  wish  to  take  up  first, 
describing  the  only  view  which  has  much  currency  and  criti- 
cising it.  For  in  answer  to  this  question  there  is  practically 
only  one  theory  in  the  field,  that  of  Bain,  in  his  latest  formu- 
lation of  which  he  shows  its  conformity  to  evolution  require- 
ments. It  is  based  upon  Mr.  Spencer's  earlier  theory,  but 
has  certain  modifications  which  Mr.  Bain  states  in  a  passage 
which  I  quote  below.  I  shall  hereafter  refer  to  the  view  now 
described  as  the  'Spencer-Bain  theory.' 

Mr.  Bain's  view  is  this:  the  organism  is  endowed  with 
spontaneous  movement,  a  certain  spontaneity  of  action  which 
must  be  assumed.  Certain  of  these  spontaneous  movements 
happen  by  '  lucky  chance '  to  succeed  in  bringing  the  organism 
into  some  special  adjustment,  better  exposure,  better  protec- 
tion, easier  function,  etc. ;  these  movements  are  accompanied 
by  pleasure.  The  pleasure  lingers  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  creature  in  connection  with  the  memory  of  the  particular 
movement  which  brought  it ;  and  the  memory  of  the  pleasure 
serves  to  incite  the  creature  to  execute  the  same  movement 
again,  whenever  the  same  external  conditions  present  them- 
selves. The  repetitions  thus  secured  serve  to  fix  the  new 
adjustment  as  a  permanent  acquisition  on  the  part  of  the 
organism. 

It  is  evident  that  on  this  view  of  adaptation,  Mr.  Bain 
assumes  consciousness  with  pleasure  and  pain  in  the  organism 
and  also  assumes  an  association  between  the  sense  of  the 
pleasure  and  the  sense  or  mental  picture  of  the  movement 
which  brought  the  pleasure.  A  third  supposition  should 
also  be  especially  noted,  —  because  it  is  usually  so  tacit  an 
assumption  as  to  go  quite  unremarked,  —  namely,  that  the 
circumstances  or  environment  remain  sufficiently  constant  to 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation    173 

enable  the  creature  to  use  the  association  between  the  pleas- 
ure and  the  movement.  He  must  have  various  movements 
stimulated  over  again  as  before,  and  among  them  the  one 
which  before  gave  the  pleasure,  in  order  that  the  pleasant 
memory  of  this  particular  one  may  be  suggested  along  with 
the  other  possible  ones.  Granting  these  assumptions,  we 
have  in  the  excess  discharge  a  means  of  'selecting'  the  useful 
movements. 

The  order  of  the  '  factors  of  adaptation/  as  we  may  call  the 
elements  involved  in  Bain's  scheme,  is  clearly  this:  random 
movement,  chance-accommodation,  pleasure,  memory  of 
pleasure  associated  with  memory  of  movement,  adapted 
movement.  In  this  order  I  wish  to  note  especially  the  dis- 
tinction between  adaptive  movement,  i.e.  the  movement  which 
by  chance  secures  the  accommodation,  and  adapted  move- 
ment, i.e.  the  movement  which  follows  by  association  when 
the  pleasure  is  recalled  in  memory. 

Passing  now  to  Mr.  Spencer's  theory,  we  find  a  purely 
physiological  construction.1  He  supposes  that  originally 
simple  contractility  of  protoplasm  leads  to  a  diffused  con- 
tractile discharge  throughout  the  mass;  this  results  in  ran- 
dom movements  of  great  variety.  Some  of  these  movements 
are  by  chance  more  adaptive  than  others,  and  by  this  fact  a 
larger  draught  of  energy  tends  to  concentrate  itself  upon  the 
channels  of  discharge  which  carry  out  these  movements. 
This  wave  of '  heightened  nervous  energy '  fixes  an  anatomical 
'path  of  least  resistance,'  which  so  comes  to  represent  the 
habits  and  permanent  adaptations  of  the  organism. 

The  coincidence  of  these  two  views  may  be  best  expressed 
in  the  terms  of  one  of  the  authors.  Mr.  Bain  writes:2 
"  My  leading  postulates  —  Spontaneity,  the  Continuing  of  an 

1  Spencer,  Princ.  of  Psychology,  I.,  §§  227  ff. 
*  Emotions  and  Will,  3d  ed.,  1888,  pp.  318  f. 


1 74  The   Theory  of  Development 

action  that  gives  pleasure,  and  the  Contiguous  growth  of  an 
accidental  connection  —  are  all  involved  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
explanation  of  the  development  of  our  activity.  .  .  .  The 
spontaneous  commencement  is  expressed  by  him  as  a  diffused 
discharge  of  muscular  energy  (Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  544). 
He  considers  that  as  nervous  structures  become  more  com- 
plicated, every  special  muscular  excitement  is  accompanied 
by  some  general  muscular  excitement.  Along  with  the  con- 
centrated discharge  to  particular  muscles,  the  ganglionic 
plexuses  inevitably  carry  off  a  certain  diffused  discharge  to 
the  muscles  at  large;  and  this  diffused  discharge  may  lead 
to  the  happy  movement  suitable  to  some  emergency. 

"This  is  the  doctrine  of  Spontaneity  in  a  very  contracted 
shape ;  too  contracted  in  my  judgement  for  the  requirements 
of  the  case.  I  have  adverted  to  the  inferiority  of  the  dif- 
fused wave  accompanying  a  central  process,  whether  active 
or  emotional,  such  as  is  here  assumed.  If  another  source 
of  chance  muscular  movements  can  be  assigned,  and  if  that 
source  presents  advantages  over  the  diffused  discharge,  we 
ought  to  include  it  in  our  hypothesis.  .  .  .  Mr.  Darwin 
expresses  what  is  tantamount  to  the  spontaneity  of  move- 
ment thus:  'When  the  sensorium  is  strongly  excited,  the 
muscles  of  the  body  are  generally  thrown  into  violent  action.' 
'Involuntary  and  purposeless  contractions  of  the  muscles 
of  the  chest  and  glottis,  excited  in  the  above  manner,  may 
have  first  given  rise  to  the  emission  of  vocal  sounds'  (Ex- 
pression, pp.  82,  83).  This  is  spontaneous  commencement 
under  circumstances  of  strong  excitement;  but  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  show  that  excitement  is  unnecessary,  and  that 
spontaneity  is  a  fact  of  the  ordinary  working  of  the  organs. 

"The  second  indispensable  requisite  to  voluntary  acqui- 
sition, as  well  as  to  the  consolidation  of  instinctive  powers, 
is  some  force  that  clenches  and  confirms  some  successful 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     175 

chance  coincidence.  Mr.  Spencer's  view  of  this  operation 
is  given  thus:  'After  success  will  immediately  come  pleas- 
urable sensations  with  an  accompanying  large  draught  of 
nervous  energy  towards  the  organs  employed.'  'The  lines 
of  communication  through  which  the  diffused  discharge 
happened  in  this  case  to  pass  have  opened  a  new  way  to 
certain  wide  channels  of  escape ;  and  consequently  they  have 
suddenly  become  lines  through  which  a  larger  quantity  of 
molecular  motion  is  drawn,  and  lines  which  are  so  rendered 
more  permeable  than  before.' 

"Here  is  assumed  the  Law  of  Pleasure  and  Pain.  Pleasure 
is  accompanied  by  heightened  nervous  energy,  which  nervous 
energy  finds  its  way  to  the  lines  of  communication  that  have 
been  opened  up  by  the  lucky  coincidence.  There  is  assumed 
as  a  consequence  the  third  of  the  above  postulates  —  the  con- 
tiguous adhesion  between  the  two  states,  the  state  of  feeling 
and  the  appropriate  muscular  state.  The  physical  expression 
given  by  Mr.  Spencer  to  this  result  is,  I  have  no  doubt,  cor- 
rect — '  the  opening  up  of  lines  of  discharge  that  draw  off 
large  amounts  of  molecular  motion.'" 

Bain's  three  postulates,  as  here  summed  up  by  himself, 
touch  the  inevitable  requirements  of  a  theory,  in  my  opin- 
ion, as  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  pages.  For  there 
are  three  requirements:  first,  to  get  movements  (his  'spon- 
taneity,' as  a  substitute  for  Spencer's  'diffused  discharge' 
and  Darwin's  'purposeless  contractions');  second,  to  get 
selections  made  from  these  movements  (his  'accidental 
success,'  of  certain  movements);  and  third,  'some  force 
that  clenches  and  confirms  some  successful  chance  coinci- 
dence' ('pleasure  and  pain,'  identified  with  Spencer's  'height- 
ened nervous  energy  which  finds  its  way  to  the  lines  of 
communication  that  have  been  opened  up  by  the  lucky 
coincidence'). 


176  The   Theory  of  Development 

But  it  is  evident  that  the  truth  —  if  it  be  true  — of  'spon- 
taneity' in  developed  organisms  does  not  invalidate  or  even 
supersede  Spencer's  'diffused  discharge';  for  the  phylo- 
genetic  explanation  of  spontaneity  —  the  question  how  did 
spontaneity  itself  arise  —  must  rest  on  some  such  hypoth- 
esis as  Spencer's  theory  of  discharge,  or  of  contractility 
in  response  to  stimulation.  So  we  may  pass  that  postulate 
over  without  further  question.  But  the  second  question 
comes :  given  movements  —  by  either  of  these  principles, 
both,  or  neither  —  how  are  some  of  them  selected  ?  Here, 
again,  the  answer  comes  from  both  authors:  by  chance 
adaptation.  Of  course,  we  are  told,  some  of  these  random 
movements  are  likely  to  be  more  adaptive  than  others. 
Suppose  the  creature  is  suffering  for  want  of  food,  the  move- 
ments which  hit  upon  food  are  then  the  adaptive  ones.  These 
are  then  in  so  far  selected.  This  we  may  admit  as  most  likely. 
But  in  how  far  —  again  it  is  asked  —  is  the  organism  able  to 
do  them  a  second  time?  How  are  these  successful,  good, 
advantageous  movements  kept  up?  'Pleasure  and  pain' 
is  at  once  on  everybody's  lips,  Bain's,  Spencer's,  et  at.  The 
adaptive  movement  gives  pleasure :  this  secures  the  repetition. 
But,  yet  again,  how?  Evidently  by  association,  we  are  told. 
The  lucky  movement  gives  pleasure;  it  is  done  again  to 
secure  the  pleasure  again,  for  of  all  the  movements  which  are 
incipiently  stimulated  by  the  environment,  that  one  which  is 
remembered  as  having  given  pleasure,  that  one  is  done  again. 
The  movements  must  be  incipiently  stimulated,  that  is,  the  en- 
vironment must  be  pretty  constant,  as  was  said  above,  for  other- 
wise we  may  say :  for  an  association  one  term  must  be  given ; 
either  the  pleasure  to  bring  up  the  movement,  or  the  move- 
ment to  bring  up  the  pleasure.  We  must  have  the  presence 
of  the  movement  in  some  kind  of  possibility,  in  order  to  get 
the  sense  of  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  doing  it.  Here 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation    177 

Mr.  Spencer's  theory,  on  the  organic  side,  gives  us  an  answer ; 
and  Bain,  as  it  seems  to  me,  adopts  it  as  a  supplement,  in 
the  quotation  made  above  from  his  third  edition,  directly  from 
Spencer.  "Here  is  assumed,"  says  Bain,  "the  'law  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain.'  Pleasure  is  accompanied  by  heightened,  ner- 
vous energy,  which  nervous  energy  finds  its  way  to  the  lines 
of  communication  that  have  been  opened  up  by  the  lucky 
coincidence." 

But  now  we  reach  a  point  in  the  development  of  this  theory 
at  which  difficulties  begin  to  appear.  It  is  evident  that  two 
cases  are  possible  in  the  matter  of  the  environment:  the 
case  in  which  the  stimulus  calling  out  the  lucky  movement 
continues  to  act,  and  the  case  in  which  this  stimulus  stops 
acting.  Suppose  it  be  light  —  sunlight  —  falling  on  a  pro- 
tozoon,  and  a  movement  results  which  exposes  the  crea- 
ture better  to  the  light,  and  this  exposure  is  beneficial 
and  pleasurable.  It  is  clear  that  the  sunlight  may  continue 
upon  it,  and  so  keep  up  its  good  influence ;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  sun  may  draw  away  and  be  succeeded  by  gloom. 
This  theory,  it  is  evident,  makes  the  continuance  of  the 
adaptation  dependent  upon  the  continuance  or  repetition 
of  the  stimulus.  How  could  the  organism  remember  that  it 
elongated  itself  by  chance  upward,  let  us  say,  in  the  light,  and 
that  this  gave  pleasure,  if  there  be  no  longer  any  light  to  sug- 
gest the  pleasure  ?  If  it  do  it  in  the  dark,  it  again  exposes  itself 
to  chance ;  for  such  an  elongation  in  the  dark  may  be  the  very 
reaction  which  will  destroy  it.  So  all  adaptive  reactions  on 
this  theory  can  be  adapted  reactions  —  real  adjustments,  ac- 
quisitions —  only  in  conditions  of  relative  regularity  and 
frequency  of  stimulation. 

This  theory,  therefore,  leaves  the  organism  to  the  risk 
of  getting  repetitions  of  stimulus  by  accident ;  just  as  it 
got  the  adaptation  by  the  chance  of  a  lucky  movement, 


178  The   Theory  of  Development 

so  it  can  keep  it  only  by  the  chance  of  the  recurrence  of 
the  stimulus.  The  organism  waits  the  second  time  upon 
chance,  just  as  it  did  the  first  time.  The  postulate  that 
pleasure  from  the  lucky  movement  is  the  agent  of  adapta- 
tion, succeeds,  therefore,  only  when  the  environing  agencies 
of  stimulation  are  regular  and  constantly  available. 

This  necessity  of  regularity  of  conditions  is  put  by  Mr. 
Joseph  Jastrow  in  these  words:  "The  existence  of  habits 
implies  an  environment  sufficiently  constant  to  repeatedly 
present  to  the  organism  the  same  or  closely  similar  con- 
ditions." *  And  writers  generally  assume,  if  they  do  not  say, 
that  the  organism  is  developed  by  the  repetition  of  stimula- 
tions which  storm  it,  by  the  laws  of  their  own  action,  coming 
to  act  upon  it  while  it  remains  in  its  place  to  be  acted  upon. 
Complexity  of  adaptation  is  then  secured  by  the  compounding 
of  the  reactions  which  are  sustained  in  this  way.2 

Again,  another  question  must  be  asked  in  regard  to  the 
postulate  of  'heightened  nervous  energy'  which  both  Spencer 
and  Bain  make  the  physiological  counterpart  of  pleasure. 
The  pleasure  resulting  from  the  first  accidentally  adaptive 
movement  issues  in  a  heightened  nervous  discharge  toward 
the  organs  which  made  the  movement,  a  discharge  which  finds 
its  way  to  the  same  channels  as  before,  and  so  makes  it 
likely  that  the  same  movement  will  be  repeated,  the  external 
conditions  remaining  the  same.  By  these  discharges  this 
movement  gets,  of  course,  a  better  chance  of  being  performed 
on  subsequent  occasions.  So  the  organism  fixes  its  adap- 
tations. 

Let  us  accept  this  and  say  that  something  equivalent  to 
'heightened  nervous  energy'  alone  can  explain  the  repeti- 

1  Popular  Science  Monthly,  November,   1892. 

2  More  is  said  of  this  compounding  tendency,  below,  Chap.  VIII.,  §  4. 
Cf.  Spencer's  exposition  of  it,  loc.  cit.,  Vol.  I.,  §§  231  ff. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     179 

tion  of  reactions  which  are  both  useful  and  pleasurable. 
We  may  call  this,  then,  for  convenience,  the  principle  of 
'Motor  Excess,'  and  say  that  pleasure  and  pain  can  be 
agents  of  accommodation  and  development  only  if  the 
one,  pleasure,  carry  with  it  the  phenomenon  of  'motor  excess,' 
and  the  other,  pain,  the  reverse  —  probably  some  form  of 
inhibition  or  of  antagonistic  contraction. 

Our  question  then  is  this :  What  is  the  reason  that  the 
movements  which  are  accidentally  more  adaptive  than 
others,  give  pleasure?  Is  there  anything  in  one  move- 
ment, as  such,  more  than  another,  that  it  should  give 
pleasure?  How  can  it  matter  to  the  protozoon,  for  exam- 
ple, whether  it  elongate  itself  upward,  or  flatten  itself  down- 
ward, that  it  should  feel  better  in  one  case  than  in  the 
other? 

The  only  answer  evidently  is,  that  the  pleasure  is  not  in 
the  movement  in  itself,  but  in  what  the  movement  gets  for 
the  organism.  The  protozoon  may  elongate  itself  upward 
without  pleasure  possibly  in  the  dark,  or  with  positive  pain. 
The  plant  may  turn  upward  only  in  the  light  (heliotro- 
pism),  and  then  downward  only  in  the  dark  (geotropism) 
to  show  its  adaptations.  It  is  the  sunlight  which  the  creature 
gets  from  its  elongation  upward  that  gives  the  pleasure.1 

Yet  that  the  current  theory,  as  held  by  psychologists, 
makes  the  first  adaptive  movement  accidental,  and  the  pleas- 
ure which  serves  as  agent  of  accommodation  to  result  only 
from  that  movement,  may  be  seen  from  such  statements  as 
the  following  from  Hoffding,  who  accepts  Bain's  postulate 


1  A  case  which  fulfils  the  details  of  this  illustration  is  to  be  found  in  certain 
shellfish  (mussels)  which  respond  variably  to  light  and  shade.  Some  species 
withdraw  when  shadows  are  thrown  upon  them;  certain  others  withdraw 
when  light  falls  on  them ;  and  yet  others  respond  by  contraction  to  both  light 
and  shade.  See  Nagel,  in  Biol.  Centralb.,  XIV.,  1894,  p.  385. 


180  The  Theory  of  Development 

of  spontaneity  in  developed  organisms.  He  says:  "There 
may  be  accommodation  even  before  consciousness  by  means 
of  reflex  movement.  In  this,  movement  is  not  immediately 
brought  about  by  the  internal  state,  but  by  a  stimulus  from 
the  external  world,  or  from  a  part  of  the  organism."  1 

As  soon  as  it  is  criticised,  this  bald  position  becomes  irra- 
tional, as  every  one  will  admit :  for  the  action  of  the  sunlight 
it  is  which  stimulates  the  organic  and  vital  processes,  aids 
nutrition,  sets  the  organism  into  its  life  rhythms,  etc.  This  is 
universally  the  case.  It  is  what  the  organism  gets  by  the 
movements  or  without  movement,  that  ministers  to  its  life; 
that  is  the  original  pleasure-giving  thing,  not  the  mere  fact 
of  one  movement  rather  than  another. 

And  yet,  as  evident  as  this  is,  I  cannot  find  it  anywhere 
clearly  brought  out  in  the  literature  of  this  topic.  It  may 
have  been  taken  for  granted  by  every  one,  we  could  well 
believe,  except  that  when  we  come  to  generalize  this  view,  we 
find  that  the  theory  of  adaptation  takes  on  a  meaning  very 
different  from  that  usually  understood.  If  it  is  the  organism's 
stimulations,  such  as  food  supply,  contact  with  the  oxygen  of 
the  air,  equilibrium  under  the  action  of  gravity,  etc.  —  if  it 
is  such  things  which  give  the  organic  bases  of  pleasure  — 
then  these  it  is  which  serve  to  bring  about  the  motor  excess 
discharge  and  produce  the  abundance  and  variety  of  move- 
ments necessary  to  selection.  But  if  so  again,  then  we  do  not 
need  the  first  accidentally  adaptive  movement  to  give  pleasure, 
and  through  pleasure  so  to  secure  the  excess  discharge. 

The  old  theory  turns  the  case  completely  over  and  stands  it 
on  its  head.2  We  reach,  in  fact,  from  this  consideration  a 
new  construction  in  which  our  organism  begins  with  a  sus- 
ceptibility to  certain  organic  stimulations,  such  as  food,  oxy- 

1  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  311. 

2  Cf.  Spencer,  loc.  cit.,  I.,  p.  545. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation    181 

gen,  etc. ;  these  when  present  give  pleasure ;  the  pleasure  is, 
physiologically  considered,  a  heightened  vitality  in  the  central 
nuclear  processes ;  this  heightened,  central  vitality  issues  in  a 
motor  excess  discharge;  from  the  resulting  abundant  and 
varied  movements  of  this  excess  discharge  those  are  selected 
which  bring  more  of  these  vital  stimulations  again ;  and  these 
finally  keep  up  the  vitality  of  the  organism,  and  by  the  re- 
peated excess  movements  provide  for  constantly  progressive 
adaptations. 

This  position,  it  is  plain,  does  not  rule  out  the  old  inter- 
pretation entirely  —  the  view  that  it  is  the  effect  of  accidentally 
adapted  movements  to  give  pleasure.  For  in  saying  that 
it  is  the  stimulus  or  sense  process  which  gives  pleasure,  ac- 
cording as  it  is  vitally  beneficial  or  not,  I  do  not  rule  out  any 
kind  of  stimulus  or  sense  process.  Muscular  sensation  — 
the  sense  process  of  accomplished  movement  —  takes  its 
place  as  one  such  process  among  others,  and  a  very  important 
one.  In  so  far  as  the  exercise  of  muscle  in  high  organisms, 
or  the  mere  fact  of  contractility  itself  in  the  lower,  is  vitally 
good,  in  so  far  it  also  gives  pleasure,  and  this  pleasure  serves 
to  issue  in  excess  discharge  to  the  same  regions  again.  But 
this  is  a  very  different  view  from  that  which  says  that  the 
excess  movements  corresponding  to  pleasure  all  follow  from 
accidental  movements  which  are  lucky. 

The  Spencer-Bain  view  seems  then  to  say  that  one  kind 
of  sense  process,  that  which  reports  movements,  and  move- 
ments only  of  a  particular  kind  —  those  which  happen  to  be 
adaptive  by  chance  —  that  this  one  kind  of  sense  process  gives 
pleasure,  while  all  others  do  not.  But  why  should  this  be  ? 
All  processes  of  stimulation  going  into  the  organic  centres 
ought  to  follow  the  same  law.  If  one  kind,  in  as  far  as  it 
serves  to  heighten  vitality,  for  that  reason  brings  up  the  energies 
of  the  reacting  centre  to  the  pitch  of  a '  heightened  nervous 


1 82  The  Theory  of  Development 

discharge,'  why  should  not  any  other  stimulating  process 
which  serves  to  heighten  vitality  do  the  same  thing?  And 
when  we  come  to  press  the  case  more  closely  and  ask  why 
it  is  that  only  one  class  of  movements  —  a  logical  class  merely, 
those  which  happen  to  be  adaptive  —  do  in  reality  so  act,  the 
only  practical  criterion  is  after  all,  on  this  theory,  just  that 
which  I  am  urging,  i.e.  that  those  movements  only  are  adap- 
tive which  secure  a  new  element  of  sense  process,  such  as 
light,  chemical  action,  food  stimulus,  etc.,  in  addition  to 
the  ordinary  advantage  of  movement  itself  which  all  move- 
ments, qua  movements,  have  in  common. 

So  far,  we  have  spoken  of  pleasure,  but  the  same  holds, 
verbis  mutatis,  of  pain.  Let  us  ask  this  question:  Where 
in  the  entire  series  of  events  constituting  a  reaction  accom- 
panied by  pain  —  stimulus,  central  process,  movement  — 
does  the  pain  come  in,  before  or  after  the  first  adapted  move- 
ment, i.e.  the  movement  that  has  an  inhibiting  influence 
somehow  upon  its  own  further  performance?  The  whole 
phraseology  of  Spencer  and  Bain  would  serve  to  make  us 
think  that  it  came  in  only  after  a  movement  so  unlucky  as  to  be 
ill-adapted,  the  pain  being  part  of  the  effect  of  the  movement, 
so  that,  by  the  memory  of  the  pain  thus  got,  the  movement  is 
in  future  inhibited.  The  pain  got  from  the  movement  serves 
in  memory  to  warn  us  not  to  repeat  the  movement.1  But  here 
I  take  issue  blankly,  contending  that  it  comes  in  by  and  in  the 
stimulus  and  before  its  discharge  in  movement,  warning  us  not 
to  move  so  as  to  repeat  that  stimulus.  It  is  by  this  'warning,' 

1  In  support  of  this,  see  Spencer,  Prin.  of  Psych.,  Vol.  I.,  §§  227  f.,  §  232, 
§  237.  Bain's  view  is  seen  in  the  quotation  given  above.  Dr.  Ward  seems 
to  be  clear  of  this  criticism,  as  regards  the  function  of  the  pain-process,  as 
actually  issuing  in  movements  which  secure  pleasure  or  bring  less  pain.  I 
can  get  no  consistent  conception,  however,  from  Ward,  since  he  implicates 
attention  even  when,  by  express  claim,  he  is  discussing  'only  the  original 
evolution.' — Encycl.  Brit.,  Art.  'Psychology,'  p.  73. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     183 

—  which  is  in  organic  terms  an  actual  lowering  of  vitality  and 
consequent  dampening  of  movement,  or  production  of  con- 
trary movements,  —  that  organism  tends  to  avoid  the  repe- 
tition of  this  stimulation. 

Let  us  take  for  scrutiny  the  customary  illustration  —  the 
one  which  James  uses,  for  example,  in  explaining  the  '  Mey- 
nert  scheme'  of  nervous  action.  A  child  thrusts  his  finger 
in  a  candle-flame,  and  is  burned :  he  thrusts  no  more,  but 
shrinks.  Here  the  doctrine  of  Spencer,  Bain,  and  many 
others,  seems  to  make  the  function  of  the  pain  the  inhibition 
of  the  thrusting  movement,  as  itself  undesirable.  But  surely 
the  case  is  very  different.  Is  this  movement  in  itself  un- 
desirable? Is  it  not  undesirable  only  under  these  or  similar 
circumstances  ?  The  inhibiting  effect  and  the  pain  are 
brought  about  by  the  burn,  and  the  recurrence  of  that — • 
that  is  the  thing  to  be  prevented.  The  thrusting  movement 
is  a  mere  incident.  Suppose  the  candle  is  brought  up  against 
the  child  instead  of  the  reverse :  it  then  shrinks  just  the  same. 
But  in  this  case  there  has  been  no  forward  movement  giving 
a  pain,  by  the  memory  of  which,  on  the  theory  in  question, 
the  shrinkage  or  stoppage  of  thrusting  is  caused.  No  doubt 
the  child  has  a  habit  of  shrinking  from  pain-causing  things ; 
but  what  I  claim  is  just  this,  that  it  is  pain-causing  things, 
not  pain-producing  movements,  in  reference  to  which  it  has 
acquired  this  habit. 

So  far  therefore,  let  us  bear  clearly  in  mind,  our  outcome 
is  this :  we  accept  from  the  Spencer-Bain  theory  the  fact  of 
adaptation  by  selection  from  excessive  movements,  and  also 
the  view  that  the  forerunner  or  cause  of  these  excessive 
movements  is  a  central  process  which  is  the  organic  analogue 
of  pleasure ;  *  but  we  raise  an  objection  to  that  theory  which 

1  Omitting  the  negative  or  pain  side,  which,  apart  from  details,  proceeds  in 
a  parallel  way;  cf.  Chap.  XVI.,  §  3. 


184  The  Theory  of  Development 

seems  to  us  insuperable :  The  objection  that  if  makes  this 
pleasure,  and  through  it  all  adaptation,  result  from  one  kind 
of  sense -stimulus,  that  of  the  organism's  own  contraction, 
and  not  from  others,  with  no  ground  whatever  for  this  dis- 
crimination against  the  ordinary  stimulations  of  the  environ- 
ment, such  as  light,  heat,  oxygen,  food-supply,  etc.,  which 
are  from  the  first  most  vitally  necessary  for  all  growth. 

To  obviate  this  objection  we  must  hold  that  all  stimula- 
tions which  heighten  vitality  give  the  organic  basis  of  pleasure 
and  by  this  issue  in  excessive  movements.  This  seems 
natural,  easy,  and  in  fact  inevitable.  This  is  what  our  theory 
does.  It  says :  given  any  reason  for  a  better  central  organic 
state  of  things,  this  better  state  of  things  shows  itself,  by 
the  law  of  dynamogenesis,  in  the  greater  ease,  facility,  and 
variety  of  movements,  which  facilitate  the  adjustments  and 
so  the  adaptations  of  the  organism. 

This  is  the  first  innovation  which  the  theory  which  I  have 
sketched  above  proposes.  While  securing  the  better  basis 
for  adaptation  generally,  however,  this  does  not  interfere 
with  the  function  of  pleasure  which  Bain  desiderates  —  i.e. 
"some  force  that  clenches  and  confirms,  some  successful 
chance  coincidence"  1  [of  movement].  For  as  I  have  said, 
the  successful  chance  coincidence  would  still  give  pleasure 
and  the  same  association  would  hold  between  this  pleasure 
and  the  particular  movement  which  secured  it.  And  under 
regular  conditions  of  stimulation  this  association  would 
suffice  to  draught  off  the  increased  energy  of  the  pleasure 
process  into  the  channels  of  the  movement  which  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  pleasure ;  for  the  organic  basis  of  an  asso- 
ciation must  be  some  kind  of  a  connective  pathway  between 
the  seats  of  the  things  which  are  associated. 

A  later  utterance  of  Bain's  comes  nearer,  as  far  as  I  am 

1  See  the  quotation  from  Bain  above. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     185 

sure  that  I  understand  it,  to  the  recognition  of  this  view  of 
the  general  value  of  pleasure  and  pain  in  the  theory  of 
organic  accommodation.  He  says  in  his  last  edition:1 
"  The  law  that  a  movement  bringing  pain  tends  to  be  arrested, 
and  a  movement  bringing  pleasure  to  be  promoted,  is  with 
some  plausibility  referred  to  a  general  principle  of  nervous 
action,  whereby,  seeing  that  pleasure  is  in  so  many  cases 
associated  with  increase,  and  pain  with  diminution,  of  vital 
energy,  there  should  grow  out  of  this  circumstance  a  dispo- 
sition of  pleasure  to  feed,  and  of  pain  to  sap,  its  own  produc- 
ing energy  [by  an  adaptation  of  movements  by  which  the 
stimulation  giving  pleasure  is  retained,  on  one  hand,  and  that 
giving  pain  broken  with,  on  the  other  hand].  There  is  an 
undoubted  consistency  between  the  two  sides  of  our  being 
on  this  hypothesis  [of  what  we  have  called  an  'imitative' 
or  'circular  activity'].  .  .  .  The  hypothesis  in  question  de- 
mands for  its  adequacy  a  far-reaching,  although  not  in- 
credible or  impossible,  assumption  —  viz.,  that  the  tendency 
of  pleasure,  through  the  medium  of  its  physical  accompani- 
ments, to  heighten  for  the  moment  the  activities  of  the  frame- 
work in  general,  somehow  finds  a  way  to  concentrate  upon 
the  specific  movement  adapted  to  the  precise  case  [i.e. 
adapted  to  bring  the  organism  into  continued  relation  to 
the  pleasure-giving  stimulus].  This  is  a  very  large  demand 
in  itself  and  would  seem  to  need  a  large  number  of  chance 
experiments  [or  a  congenital  variation  producing  a  bifurcate 
division  of  movements  into  'expanding'  and  'contracting' 
respectively]  before  the  lucky  coincidence  is  reached.  The 
hypothesis  is  by  no  means  impossible  ...  its  natural  place 
is  under  the  hypothesis  of  Evolution,  where  it  is  an  im- 
portant, if  not  indispensable,  item."  2 

1  Bain,  Senses  and  Intellect,  4th  ed.,  1894,  pp.  328  f. 

z  I  think  it  well  to  say  that  Professor  Bain  in  a  private  letter  wrote  me  that 


1 86  The  Theory  of  Development 

We  now  find  ourselves  introduced  to  another  class  of 
facts,  which,  when  interpreted,  lead  us  to  suggest  another 
modification  of  the  theory  of  adaptation. 

It  is  evident  that  we  have  been  dealing  with  the  question 
of  ontogenetic  adaptation  so  far,  the  question  as  to  how 
the  individual  organism  manages  to  get  new  adaptations. 
Later  on  we  may  ask  how  the  species  can  profit  by  the 
accommodations  secured  by  the  individual.  But  when  we 
come  to  view  the  general  fact  of  race  adaptation  as  a  whole, 
the  question  which  we  have  just  been  discussing  takes  on  a 
further  interest. 

It  has  been  needful  to  assume  that  in  the  simplest  organic 
forms  which  have  contractility,  and  which  are  able  to  adapt 
themselves  by  their  movements  to  their  environment  —  that 
in  such  forms  the  analogue  of  pleasure  is  a  central  excess 
process  which  discharges  itself  in  movement.  The  question 
for  phylogenesis,  then,  which  comes  upon  us  is  this:  how 
did  this  condition  of  things  arise,  and  what  form  must  we 
hold  these  excess  movements  to  take? 

This  question  Mr.  Bain  seems  to  beg.  His  principle  of 
'spontaneity'  is  his  starting-point;  and  he  does  not  see  that 
spontaneity  must,  as  has  been  said  above,  itself  be  construed 
in  terms  of  some  form  of  process  which  accounts  for  an 
organism's  expenditures  of  energy  derived  from  such  stimu- 
lations as  its  food-processes,  etc.  Hoffding  says  in  reference 
to  the  fact  of  spontaneity:1  "The  internal  changes,  which 

he  was  taking  account  of  my  article  on  'Imitation'  in  Mind,  (January,  1894). 
As  he  makes  no  reference,  however,  to  my  paper  in  his  book,  I  may  be  wrong 
in  thinking  this  to  be  a  passage  in  which  he  had  my  article  in  view.  I  may 
even  be  wrong  in  thinking  that  the  'hypothesis'  he  speaks  of  is  capable  of 
being  interpreted  in  the  way  I  have  done  in  the  additions  made  in  brackets 
in  the  text.  In  that  case,  the  quotation  may  be  read  simply  as  a  further  expo- 
sition of  my  own  views  put  largely  in  Professor  Bain's  words. 
1  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  309. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     187 

set  free  potential  energy,  must,  in  their  turn,  depend  on  the 
function  of  nourishment.  The  spontaneous  movement  of 
living  creatures  is  possible  only  because  life  itself  is  an  un- 
interrupted process  of  taking  in  and  using  up  certain  con- 
stituents. Absolute  spontaneity  would  be  a  consumption  of 
one's  own  fat."  It  is  evident  that  Bain  never  brings  the 
genetic  point  of  view  into  his  theories,  except  by  the  merest 
attempts  at  grafting  the  evolution  idea  upon  the  trunk  of  his 
analysis  of  the  actions  of  developed  organisms. 

Mr.  Spencer,  on  the  contrary,  does  attempt  to  account  for 
the  rise  of  the  heightened  nervous  process  in  individuals. 
He  considers  it  a  concentration  of  the  energies  of  reaction 
into  particular  pathways;  and  so,  indeed,  it  must  be.  But  to 
him,  also,  it  is  an  ontogenetic  acquirement.  It  follows  upon 
the  first  lucky  adaptive  movement,  as  we  have  seen  above. 

This  account  we  now  see  to  be  inadequate,  since  it  as- 
sumes, as  has  been  shown  at  length,  that  when  certain 
stimulations  are  present  —  stimulations  covered  by  the  vague 
word  'adjustments,'  which  the  lucky  movement  happens  to 
strike  —  these  stimulations  serve  by  their  action  to  heighten 
the  central  processes.  So  the  whole  question  remains  quite 
unanswered  as  to  why  any  stimulations  do  thus  heighten 
the  central  processes,  and  so  give  an  excess  discharge  in 
movement.  Of  course,  the  answer  seems  to  be  that  those 
processes  of  stimulation  do  this  to  which  the  organism  is 
already  accommodated  —  those  under  the  action  of  which 
it  has  come  to  be  what  it  is  —  its  food-supply,  oxygen, 
chemical  agents,  gravity,  contacts,  etc.,  etc. 

The  general  fact  of  adaptation  by  chance  adjustments 

occurring  among  excessive  diffused  movements  is,  of  course, 

true  —  that  I  have  exemplified  above  in  the  theory  of  the 

rise  of  handwriting.1    What  is  not  accounted  for  on  the 

1  Chap.  V.,  §  2. 


1 88  The   Theory  of  Development 

current  theory  is  just  the  spontaneous  or  excessive  move- 
ments, from  which  the  selection  is  made.  These,  in  my 
view,  are  due  to  the  heightened  central  processes  excited  by 
vitally  appropriate  stimuli.  This  seems  so  elementary  and 
simple  that  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to  speak  further  of 
it  were  it  not  for  another  fact,  to  which  we  may  now  revert. 

Biologists  find  among  the  first  adaptations  of  the  organ- 
isms, the  earliest  in  the  phylogenetic  series  —  in  the  minutest 
bacteria,  the  most  formless  protozoa,  the  unicellular  crea- 
tures of  a  day ;  in  plants,  in  all  life  —  a  certain  fundamental 
difference  of  movements.  All  organisms  behave  in  two 
great  and  opposite  ways  toward  stimulations ;  they  approach 
them,  or  they  recede  from  them.  Creatures  which  move  as 
a  whole  move  toward  some  kinds  of  stimulations,  and  recede 
from  others.  Creatures  which  are  fixed  in  their  habitat  ex- 
pand toward  certain  stimulations,  and  contract  away  from 
others.  It  is  very  evident  that  if  this  be  true,  the  very  uni- 
formity of  the  relation  entitles  it  to  a  place  in  any  theory  of 
development.  And  the  question  at  once  arises:  why  is  it 
that  we  find  these  two  well-marked  differences  in  behaviour 
in  each  organism,  whatever  its  type  and  place  in  the  scale  of 
animate  nature  ? 1 

Now  if  we  assume  this  to  be  a  fact  in  nature  —  I  devote 
an  entire  chapter  further  on  to  the  consideration  of  the 
facts,  under  the  phrase  'Organic  Imitation'  — that  an  organ- 
ism tends  to  approach,  move,  strain,  toward  certain  stimu- 
lations, and  away  from  others,  it  becomes  easy  to  connect 
the  fact  with  our  former  account  of  development,  and  to 

1  "  Coextensive  with  the  phenomena  of  excitability  —  that  is  to  say,  with 
the  phenomena  of  life  —  we  find  this  function  of  selective  discrimination  — 
this  power  of  discriminating  among  stimuli  and  responding  to  those  which 
are  the  stimuli  to  which  responses  are  appropriate."  —  ROMANES,  Mental 
Evolution  in  Animals,  p.  51. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     189 

hold  that  the  stimulations  which  the  organism  tends  toward 
are  those  which  heighten  its  vitality,  which  give  it  pleasure, 
and  those  from  which  it  draws  back  are  those  whose  effect 
upon  it  is  the  contrary  —  the  damaging,  the  painful  ones. 
This  is  on  the  surface  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
for  nature  to  do  —  to  endow  her  creatures  with  a  great 
power  of  self-preservation  and  self -improvement.  An  organ- 
ism does  not  have  to  wait  for  a  pleasure  to  come  along,  but 
after  it  has  once  had  it,  it  can  go  out  after  it ;  nor  to  remain 
exposed  to  a  pain,  but  after  once  experiencing  it,  it  can  retire 
with  discretion. 

This  follows  in  such  simple  order  from  what  we  have 
found  to  be  the  method  of  adaptation  —  in  each  case  by  a 
movement  whose  adjustment  consists  just  in  its  appropriate- 
ness to  secure  a  good  stimulation  —  that  the  facts  of  biology 
which  show  this  first  contrast  in  movements  are  only  what 
we  would  expect.  And  they  tend  in  so  far  also  to  confirm 
the  earlier  view  as  to  the  method. 

Coming  to  interpret  this  new  result,  therefore,  we  see  that  our 
early  random,  spontaneous  movements  are  not  only  relatively 
random  or  spontaneous.  The  ontogenetic  growth  of  the  in- 
dividual at  any  race  stage  starts  with  this  fundamental 
adjustment  of  movements  to  the  stimulations  under  which 
the  phylogenetic  development  has  so  far  progressed.  And  it 
is  only  a  statement  of  the  law  of  phylogenetic  development  to 
say  that  this  antithesis  of  outward  movements,  expansions, 
on  one  hand,  and  withdrawing  movements,  contractions,  on 
the  other,  is  due  to  natural  selection  working  among  organ- 
isms ;  the  first  application  of  natural  selection  spoken  of  above 
in  the  introductory  sketch  of  the  theory  of  development.1 

1  We  have  the  authority  of  Mr.  Spencer  for  making  the  ability  to  move 
toward  or  away  from  an  object  a  sufficient  cue  to  the  operation  of  natural 
selection,  -i.e.  in  the  development  of  the  bilateral  nervous  system  and  the 


190  The  Theory  of  Development 

So  when  we  come  to  consider  phylogeny  and  ontogeny 
together  we  find  that  if  by  an  organism  we  mean  a  thing 
merely  of  contractility  or  irritability,  whose  round  of  move- 
ments is  kept  up  by  some  kind  of  nutritive  process  sup- 
plied by  the  environment  —  absorption,  chemical  action  of 
atmospheric  oxygen,  etc.  —  and  whose  existence  is  threatened 
by  dangers  of  contact  and  what  not,  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to 
secure  a  regular  supply  to  the  nutritive  processes,  and  to 
avoid  these  contacts.  But  the  organism  can  do  nothing  but 
move,  as  a  whole  or  in  some  of  its  parts.  So  then  if  one  of 
such  creatures  is  to  be  fitter  than  another  to  survive,  it  must 
be  the  creature  which  by  its  movements  secures  more  nutri- 
tive processes  and  avoids  more  dangerous  contacts.  But 
movements  toward  the  source  of  stimulation  keep  hold  on 
the  stimulation,  and  movements  away  from  contacts  break 
the  contacts,  that  is  all.  Nature  selects  these  organisms; 
how  could  she  do  otherwise  ? 

This,  too,  is  consonant  with  all  that  we  know  of  growth. 
Increased  vitality  tends  to  enlargement,  range  of  movement, 
activity;  while  lessened  vitality  and  organic  decay  tend  to 
the  opposite  series  of  effects,  i.e.  shrinking,  contraction  of 
range,  torpidity. 

system~of  antagonistic  muscles  (loc.  cit.,  I.,  §  233).  But  he  entirely  fails 
to  see  that  the  same  thing  is  done  by  the  minute  creatures  which  swarm 
to  red  light  and  away  from  blue  light,  although  they  have  no  nervous  or 
muscular  systems  at  all.  Dr.  Ward  also  appeals  to  natural  selection  in  dis- 
cussing this  subject  as  follows:  "At  first  when  only  random  movements 
ensue,  we  may  fairly  suppose  both  that  the  chance  of  at  once  making  a  happy 
hit  would  be  small  and  that  the  number  of  chances  would  also  be  small. 
Under  such  circumstances  natural  selection  would  have  to  do  almost  every- 
thing and  subjective  selection  almost  nothing.  So  far  as  natural  selection 
worked  we  should  have,  not  the  individual  subject  making  a  series  of  tries 
and  perfecting  itself  by  practice,  but  we  should  have  those  individuals  whose 
stuff  and  structure  happened  to  vary  for  the  better,  surviving,  increasing 
and  displacing  the  rest."  —  Encycl.  Brit.,  Art.  '  Psychology,'  p.  73. 


Current  Biological  Theory  of  Adaptation     191 

We  only  have  to  suppose,  then,  that  the  nutritive  growth 
processes  are  by  natural  selection  drained  off  in  organic  ex- 
pansions, to  get  the  division  in  movements  which  represents 
this  earliest  bifurcate  adaptation.  Then  inside  of  this  group 
of  expansive  movements  —  '  spontaneities '  or  '  heightened 
discharges' — it  becomes  the  sphere  of  ontogenetic  growth  to 
secure  the  further  refinements  of  adjustment  which  the  phe- 
nomena of  'excess' — now  identified  both  with  pleasurable 
experience  in  consciousness  and  with  motor  discharges  giving 
outreaching  movements  —  enables  the  organism  to  secure. 

Finally,  we  found  the  Spencer-Bain  theory  to  make  one 
other  presupposition.  It  requires  a  relatively  constant,  un- 
changing environment,  in  order  to  give  the  repetitions  of 
stimulation  which  development  requires.  The  organism  is 
supposed  to  be  battered,  stormed,  by  repeated  stimulations 
of  the  same  general  kinds.  In  this,  the  purely  biological 
theories  of  development  concur;  by  which  I  mean  those 
theories  which  do  not  call  in  the  pleasure-pain  process  at 
all,  but  rely  simply  upon  the  repetition  of  stimulations  and 
reactions,  and  the  resulting  compounding  of  processes  which 
these  repetitions  are  supposed  to  give. 

It  is  now  evident  that  our  theory  renders  the  organism 
much  less  dependent  upon  such  regularity  and  constancy  in 
the  environment.  Creatures  which  have,  in  their  own 
method  of  reaction,  a  way  of  reaching  after  the  stimulations 
which  they  need  —  a  way  of  retaining  contact  with  the 
source  of  supply,  say  of  food,  or  oxygen,  or  sunlight,  or 
heat,  or  of  increasing  their  forces  by  actually  moving  toward 
it,  these  creatures  can,  in  a  measure,  find  or  make  for  them- 
selves the  regularities  which  the  environment  may  not  guar- 
antee.1 So,  also,  can  they  by  their  natural  capacity  of 

1  Think,  for  example,  the  difference  it  makes  in  the  possible  time  required 
for  the  evolution  of  sense  organs  such  as  the  eye,  if  we  allow  the  organism 


192  The  Theory  of  Development 

withdrawing  from  what  is  pain-giving,  avoid  and  escape  harm- 
ful things  to  which  they  are,  perchance,  constantly  exposed. 
It  is  possible  that  the  faculty  of  local  movement,  locomotion, 
possessed  by  animals,  in  contrast  with  plants,  is  simply  a 
further  emphasis  of  this  very  useful  distinction  in  reactions. 
This  follows,  indeed,  of  necessity,  when  we  come  to  see 
below,  that  the  system  of  'antagonistic'  muscles  is  a  product 
of  just  this  original  contrast  of  reaching  and  withdrawing 
movements. 

When,  further,  we  come  to  mental  development  proper,  in 
later  chapters  of  this  work,  we  will  see  that  this  is  exactly 
the  method  of  that  highest  of  all  functions  of  accommoda- 
tion, adaptation  by  volition.  When  we  will  to  escape  that 
which  is  brought  upon  us  by  the  regular  laws  of  nature,  we 
simply  adopt  means  of  withdrawal  from  it  by  anticipation; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  we  secure  those  pleasant  and  bene- 
ficial experiences  which  the  environment  of  our  lives  would 
not,  in  itself  perhaps,  have  brought  us  by  willing  to  go  out 
and  find  them. 

It  is  evident  from  what  has  now  been  said,  that  the  funda- 
mental difference  between  this  theory  and  that  criticised 
above  concerns  the  first  organic  adaptation.  On  our  theory, 
the  first  adaptation  is  phy >lo genetic ;  i.e.  it  is  a  variation. 
By  the  operation  of  natural  selection  among  organisms, 
those  survive  which  respond  by  expansion  to  certain  stimu- 
lations of  food,  oxygen,  etc.,  and  by  contraction  to  other 
certain  stimulations;  this  expansion  gives,  by  reason  of  the 
new  stimulations  which  it  brings  within  range,  a  heightened 
central  process  which  is  the  organic  basis  of  the  hedonic 
consciousness;  and  this  issues  in  the  varied  excess  move- 
ments from  which  the  ontogenetic  adaptations  of  the  indi- 

a  form  of  reaction  which  moves  it  toward  the  source  of  the  light  stimulation. 
Cf.  Spencer's  doctrine  on  this  point,  Psychology,  I.,  J§  231  f. 


Development  and  Heredity  193 

vidual  organism  are  selected  by  association,  as  fitted  in  turn 
to  perpetuate  the  stimulations  which  give  pleasure,  and  so 
again  to  arouse  the  excess  process,  and  so  on. 

The  current  Spencer-Bain  theory,  on  the  contrary,  holds, 
as  I  understand  it,  that  the  first  adaptation  is  ontogenetic; 
i.e.  it  is  due  to  accidental  adjustments  occurring  among 
diffused  or  spontaneous  movements  of  single  organisms, 
these  adjustments  giving  a  heightened  central  process  which 
is  the  organic  basis  of  the  hedonic  consciousness,  and  which 
issues  again  in  excess  movements  from  which  again  further 
adjustments  are  selected  by  chance;  these  adjustments  all 
being  made  permanent  by  the  association  between  the  idea 
of  the  movements  thus  giving  pleasure,  and  the  memories  of 
the  pleasure  which  they  give. 

With  these  criticisms,  the  outline  of  the  theory  of  develop- 
ment stands  out  clearly  enough,  I  think.  We  may  now  go 
on  to  show  briefly  that  the  theory  would  not  be  affected  by 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  either  of  the  opposed  views  of  heredity 
now  so  bitterly  opposed  to  each  other  in  biological  circles. 

§  3.  Development  and  Heredity 

No  theory  of  evolution  is  complete,  in  general  opinion, 
which  does  not  account  for  the  utilization  in  some  way, 
from  one  generation  to  another,  of  the  gains  of  the  earlier 
generations,  turning  individual  gains  into  race  gains.  I 
wish,  therefore,  to  inquire  briefly  what  treatment  the  view  of 
development  held  above  has  a  right  to  expect  from  the  two 
current  theories  of  heredity. 

The  neo- Darwinians  hold  that  natural  selection,  operating 
upon  congenital  variations,  is  adequate  to  explain  all  progres- 
sive race  gains.  This  theory,  therefore,  is  able  to  dispense 
with  the  ontogenetic  acquirements  of  the  particular  organism. 


194  The  Theory  of  Development 

It  accordingly  denies  that  what  an  individual  experiences 
in  his  lifetime,  the  gains  he  makes  in  his  adaptations  to  his 
surroundings,  can  be  transmitted  to  his  sons. 

This  theory,  it  is  evident,  can  be  held  on  the  view  of 
development  sketched  above.  For,  granting  the  ontogenetic 
progress  required  by  the  Spencer-Bain  theory  and  adopted 
in  my  own,  —  the  learning  of  new  movements  in  the  way 
which  I  have  called  'functional  selection,' — yet  the  ability 
to  do  it  may  be  a  congenital  variation.  Indeed,  I  have  made 
the  excess  process  itself,  which  gives  the  movements  from 
which  'functional  selection'  selects  the  fittest,  together  with 
the  great  antithesis  of  expansions  and  contractions  with  pleas- 
ure and  pain,  just  such  variations  seized  upon  by  natural 
selection.  And  all  the  later  acquirements  of  individual  organ- 
isms may  likewise  be  considered  only  the  evidence  of  ad- 
ditional variations  from  these  earlier  variations.  So  it  is  only 
necessary  to  hold  to  a  view  by  which  variations  are  cumu- 
lative to  secure  the  same  results  by  natural  selection  as  would 
have  been  secured  by  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters 
from  father  to  son.  Mr.  Spencer  and  others  seem  to  me  to  be 
quite  wide  of  the  mark  in  saying  that  the  only  alternative 
to  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters  is  a  doctrine  of 
'special  creation.'  The  life  history  of  the  mammal  embryo 
shows  us,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a 
single  creature  going  through  many  of  the  variations  of 
the  race  series,  without  giving  us  the  actual  life  history  of 
the  beings  which  in  their  lives  represented  any  single  one 
of  these  stages.  As  Balfour  says :  *  "  Each  organism  re- 
produces the  variations  inherited  from  all  its  ancestors,  at 
successive  stages  in  its  individual  ontogeny  which  corre- 
spond with  those  at  which  the  variations  appeared  in  its 
ancestors."  The  embryological  record  emphasizes  the  vari- 

1  Comparative  Embryology,  p.  3. 


Development  and  Heredity  195 

ations,  not  the  means  by  which  they  were  produced,  nor 
their  detailed  organic  outcome  in  particular  generations.1 

The  problem  which  is  left  on  the  hands  of  the  neo- Dar- 
winian, therefore,  is  to  construct  a  theory  of  variations. 
The  'why,'  the  'how  much,'  the  'in  what  direction,'  of  vari- 
ation—  these  questions  he  must  answer.  And,  of  course, 
the  burden  of  proof  lies  on  him  to  show  that  his  adversa- 
ries have  not  correctly  answered  the  question  of  'the  how' 
of  variation  by  their  hypothesis  of  the  transmission  of  ac- 
quired characters. 

It  is  not  as  generally  seen,  however,  that  the  only  way 
that  such  a  theorist  can  answer  these  questions  is  by  an  actual 
examination  of  existing  variations  both  as  to  the  facts  of  their 
existence  and  of  their  modes  of  development.  He  must  rec- 
ognize all  the  processes  of  the  development  of  the  individual 
in  order  to  define  the  variation  which  rendered  these  results 
possible  in  the  life  of  the  individual.  This  is  what  gives  value 
to  the  Spencer-Bain  theory,  considered  as  an  attempt  to  define 
the  actual  ontogenetic  process  of  accommodation.  On  the 
basis  of  that  theory  we  may  ask  the  question,  therefore,  How 
can  functional  selection  —  individual  growth  in  accommo- 
dation —  be  efficient  ?  What  is  the  neurological  process  seen 
in  it  and  what  kind  of  congenital  variations  does  the  presence 
of  this  process  presuppose  and  also  by  screening  and  supple- 
menting —  as  '  Organic  Selection '  supposes  —  serve  to  ac- 
cumulate ? 

The  theory  of  individual  accommodation,  accordingly, 
comes  first  as  a  matter  both  of  fact  and  of  interpretation,  and 
should  be  treated  quite  apart  from  the  problem  of  hered- 
ity. We  are  justified  accordingly,  from  the  point  of  view 

1  And  this  emphasis  is  made  more  emphatic,  possibly,  in  the  light  of  the 
'discontinuous  variations'  recently  discussed  by  Bateson  and  De  Vries,  and 
earlier  pointed  out  by  Darwin,  and  by  Galton  under  the  name  of  'sports.' 


196  The  Theory  of  Development 

of  the  neo- Darwinian  theory,  in  attempting  to  answer  it 
in  the  preceding  pages.1 

The  same  is  true  also  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  neo- 
Lamarckian  theory  of  heredity,  as  is  evident ;  for  just  such 
examination  and  interpretation  of  the  facts  of  individual 
experience  and  development  supplies  on  this  theory  the  very 
means  and  method  of  interpreting  hereditary  race  progress. 
Granting  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters,  of  course 
the  biologist  then  asks:  Well,  what  has  the  individual  at 
each  stage  been  able  to  acquire,  and  how  did  he  acquire  it  ? 
This  is  what  we  have  been  attempting  to  answer  above. 

It  is  being  gradually  recognized  by  biologists  that  the 
requirements  of  theory  are  equally  well  served  by  either 
theory,  which  means  that  facts  alone  can  refute  either 
theory.  Whatever  a  particular  creature  may  be  endowed 
with,  he  might  have  got  in  either  way — or  in  both  together. 
Instinct,  for  example,  may  be  held  to  have  a  twofold  origin ; 
it  may  have  arisen  in  some  cases  by  the  natural  selection  of 
creatures  having  accidental  reflex  adaptations,  and  in  other 
cases  by  intelligent  adaptation.  And  both  processes  can  be 
construed  without  supposing  the  inheritance  of  acquired 
characters ;  for  the  ability  to  make  intelligent  adaptation  may 
be  considered  as  itself  a  variation,  by  which  congenital 
adaptations  have  been  fostered. 

I  should  say,  therefore,  that,  supposing  the  analogue  of 
the  pleasure-pain  process  is  in  all  cases  the  actual  evidence 
and  accompaniment  of  the  excess  process  from  whose  dis- 
charges adjustments  of  movement  are  secured,  then  either  of 
two  further  views  may  be  held.  Either  on  one  hand  the 
pleasure-pain  process  is  a  variation  (and  with  it,  the  actual 
hedonic  consciousness),  the  environment  of  the  individual  in 

1  The  further  carrying  out  of  this  form  of  Darwinism  is  to  be  found  in  the 
volume  Development  and  Evolution. 


The  Origin  of  Consciousness  197 

each  generation  simply  serving  to  give  it  scope  for  special 
accommodation  ;  or  on  the  other  hand,  this  process  itself  is  a 
functional  selection,  a  thing  acquired  by  the  individual  in  his 
experience.  But  in  either  case,  the  pleasure-pain  process 
is  the  same  and  performs  the  same  junctions ;  both  are  exactly 
what  the  facts  show  them  to  be.  From  the  organic  side  and 
without  reference  to  consciousness,  it  is  what  the  biologists 
call  'plasticity.' 

In  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  seemed,  however,  to  find 
reason  for  saying  that  the  pleasure-pain  process,  with  its 
antithesis  of  outward  and  inward  movements,  was  due  to 
natural  selection,  that  is,  that  it  was  phylogenetic  in  its 
origin.  Further  considerations  may  now  be  adduced  quite 
apart  from  the  general  question  of  heredity.  We  are  in 
fact  brought  here  face  to  face  with  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  consciousness,  and  upon  this  one  is  able  to  express 
only  very  hypothetical  opinions. 

§  4.    The  Origin  of  Consciousness  l 

The  foregoing  paragraphs  seem  to  give  us  some  indica- 
tions of  the  relation  of  consciousness  to  the  phenomena 
of  life.  We  have  found  it  necessary  to  hold  that  the  physical 
basis  of  hedonic  consciousness  —  the  fact  of  heightened 
central  vital  processes  issuing  in  expansive  movements  — 
is  a  variation  of  phylogenetic  origin  in  primitive  organisms, 
rather  than  an  acquisition  due  to  adjustment  secured  in  the 
life-history  of  particular  organisms.  The  original  bifurcation 
of  movements,  as  outreaching  and  retiring,  I  have  described 
as  a  phylogenetic  distinction  and  product ;  a  variation  among 
the  earliest  contractile  forms.  Some  arose  by  variation 

1  In  the  French  and  German  editions  sections  are  inserted  here  on '  Organic 
Selection'  and  'Determinate  Evolution,'  topics  now  fully  treated  in  Develop- 
ment and  Evolution. 


198  The  Theory  of  Development 

which  did  discharge  their  increased  vitality  in  expansive 
movements,  and  by  the  advantage  of  it  lived  longer  and  prop- 
agated more. 

It  is  possible,  however,  to  hold  a  different  view;  in  fact, 
we  have  found  the  ordinary  Spencer-Bain  theory  of  adaptation 
doing  so.  On  this  view  the  heightened  central  process  is 
an  adaptation  secured  in  the  lifetime  of  the  creature.  On 
this  view,  further,  it  is  necessary  to  suppose  that  all  stimu- 
lations, including  those  of  nutrition,  varied  in  their  effects 
upon  the  organism  from  enlargement,  expansion,  etc.,  in 
some  instances,  to  diminution,  contraction,  etc.,  in  other 
instances,  in  the  same  organism.  Mr.  Spencer  does  indeed 
attempt  to  give  a  purely  mechanical  deduction  of  the  as- 
sociation between  withdrawing  movement  and  pain,1  making 
it  arise  in  the  'experience'  of  uniform  contractile  tissue.  In 
that  case,  ontogenetic  adaptation  precedes  phylogenetic,  and 
if  we  bring  in  consciousness  at  all,  we  should  have  in  such  a 
creature  an  association  between  the  pleasure  of  the  success  of 
certain  expansive  movements  which  were  also  adaptive,  and 
the  sense  of  the  movements  themselves. 

This,  it  is  evident,  makes  consciousness  of  pleasure  and 
pain  arise  at  some  point  in  the  creature's  life;  just  where, 
we  have  no  clear  answer  from  Spencer.  But  if  we  say 
that  uniform  contractile  tissue  did  not  have  consciousness 
before  the  heightened  process  which  indicates  pleasure, 
and  that  this  heightened  process  is  due  in  some  way  to 
accidental  adjustments  of  movement;  then  consciousness 
must  have  arisen  by  means  of  these  adjustments. 

But  we  have  seen  that  adjustments  of  movement  can 
have  no  meaning  for  the  organism,  except  as  they  bring 
certain  vital  stimulations.  So  the  rise  of  consciousness 
after  all  would  seem  to  be  due  to  the  influence  of  these  vital 

1  Spencer,  loc.  cit.,  I.,  §  227. 


The  Origin  of  Consciousness  199 

stimulations.  And  when  we  come  to  ask  why  these  vital 
stimulations  are  vital,  why  they  are  necessary,  that  is,  we 
appeal  at  once  to  the  habits, — the  very  constitution  of  the  life 
process  itself, — all  of  which  must  have  come  to  the  particu- 
lar organism  by  heredity.  So  consciousness  becomes,  after 
all,  in  its  actual  rise  a  phylogenetic  product. 

Looking  at  it  from  this  phylogenetic  point  of  view,  as 
a  variation,  we  find  difficulties  and  certain  advantages. 
Romanes,  it  will  be  remembered,  treats  the  fact  of  'selec- 
tive contraction'  as  the  'criterion  of  mind,'  the  indication  of 
the  presence  of  consciousness ; l  and,  inasmuch  as  he  also 
finds  this  fact  of  selective  contraction  in  the  lowest  known 
living  creatures,  it  would  seem  in  his  view  to  be  due  either  to 
selection,  in  case  we  suppose  still  earlier  a  uniform  contractile 
tissue,  or  as  a  part  of  the  'general  mystery  of  life,'  in  case  we 
do  not. 

The  difficulty,  however,  which  he  sees  to  the  'selection' 
view,  he  states  in  this  way:  "The  difficulty  is  that  I  began 
by  showing  it  necessary  to  define  mind  as  the  power  of  ex- 
ercising Choice  [selective  reaction],  and  then  proceeded  to 
define  the  latter  as  a  power  belonging  only  to  agents  that  are 
able  to  feel.  ...  It  seems  that  my  conception  of  what  con- 
stitutes Choice  is  in  antagonism  with  my  view  that  the 
essential  element  of  Choice  is  found  to  occur  among  organ- 
isms which  cannot  properly  be  supposed  to  feel.  This  .  .  . 
contradiction  is  a  real  one,  though  I  hold  it  to  be  unavoidable. 
For  it  arises  from  the  fact  that  neither  Feeling  nor  Choice 
appears  upon  the  scene  of  life  suddenly.  .  .  .  There  are 
two  ways  of  meeting  the  difficulty.  One  is  to  draw  an  ar- 
bitrary line,  and  the  other  is  not  to  draw  any  line  at  all, 
but  to  carry  the  terms  down  through  the  whole  gradation  of 
the  things  until  we  arrive  at  the  terminal  or  root  principles. 

1  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  Chap.  I. 


2OO  The  Theory  of  Development 

By  the  time  that  we  do  arrive  at  these  root  principles,  it  is 
no  doubt  true  that  our  terms  have  lost  all  their  original 
meaning." 

The  difficulty  is,  in  short,  that  we  have  two  horns  of  a 
dilemma :  either  (i)  Consciousness  with  feeling  of  pleasure 
and  pain  are  coextensive  with  life ;  in  which  case  they  existed 
before  the  selective  reactions  which  are  said  to  be  the  criterion 
of  consciousness.  For  —  to  put  this  alternative  in  terms  of 
my  own  foregoing  explanations  —  the  same  stimulations 
of  nutrition,  etc.,  which  are  now  said  to  explain  the  increase 
of  the  central  processes,  upon  which  consciousness  is  based, 
must  have  been  vital  to  life  before  this  so-called  variation 
arose.  Why  then  did  not  the  uniform  living  protoplasm, 
which  preceded  the  variation,  itself  have  consciousness? 
Or,  the  second  horn  of  the  dilemma,  (2)  Consciousness  with 
feeling  of  pleasure  and  pain  are  quite  useless  appendages  to 
the  theory  of  adaptation  and  are  in  no  way  accounted  for; 
since  the  variation  which  secures  the  first  adaptation,  that  is, 
the  selective  reactions  said  to  be  the  criterion  of  mind,  are 
simply  variations  in  processes  of  nutrition,  etc.,  which  must 
have  existed  in  earlier  living  matter,  if  it  existed,  and  may 
exist  in  much  higher  forms  of  living  matter,  in  which  we 
have  no  evidence  of  such  a  thing  as  feeling  of  pleasure  or 
pain. 

Romanes  thinks  it  is  best  to  draw  no  line  at  all  between 
life  without  and  life  with  consciousness,  but  to  say  that,  as 
we  descend  in  the  scale,  terms  like  feeling,  which  imply  con- 
sciousness, are  gradually  eviscerated  of  their  meaning;  and 
he  is  probably  right.  But  he  does  not  see  that  even  then  there 
are  two  remaining  alternatives.  We  may  say,  to  state  one  of 
the  alternatives  first,  that  life  existed  before  selective  reaction ; 
in  which  case  —  holding  that  mind  is  coextensive  with  life 
—  he  must  give  up  his  criterion  of  mind.  This,  I  think,  he 


The  Origin  of  Consciousness  201 

does  substantially,  adopting,  somewhat  hesitatingly  it  is  true, 
the  Spencer-Bain  view  of  the  origin  of  adaptations  by  acci- 
dental movements  during  the  lifetime  of  early  creatures.  He 
says,1  "How  are  we  to  explain  the  fact  that  the  anatomical 
plan  of  a  nerve  centre  .  .  .  comes  to  be  that  which  is  needed 
to  direct  the  nervous  stimuli  into  the  channels  required? 
The  answer  to  this  question  we  found  to  consist  in  the  prop- 
erty which  is  shown  by  nervous  tissue,  to  grow  by  use  into  the 
directions  which  are  required  for  further  use.  This  subject 
is  as  yet  an  obscure  one,  especially  when  the  earliest  stages  of 
such  adaptive  growth  are  concerned,  but  in  a  general  way  we 
can  understand  that  hereditary  usage,  combined  with  natural 
selection,  may  have  been  alone  sufficient,  etc."  (italics  mine). 
Furthermore,  he  presents  an  argument  for  the  ontogenetic 
view  of  the  rise  of  selective  reactions  in  saying,2  "It  is  im- 
possible that  heredity  can  have  provided  in  advance  for 
innovations  upon  or  alterations  of  its  own  machinery  during 
the  lifetime  of  a  particular  individual."  The  inference  being 
that  if  such  innovations  cannot  be  provided  for  by  heredity 
(variation),  they  must  be  acquired  during  the  lifetime  of  the 
creatures.  This  argument  is  worthy  of  discussion  and  is 
taken  up  again :  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon  it  here, 
inasmuch  as  it  does  not  conflict  with  the  possible  truth  of  the 
second  alternative,  which  is  still  open. 

This  second  alternative  —  really  a  third  one  in  relation  to 
the  horns  of  the  original  dilemma  presented  to  the  mind  of 
Romanes  —  is  this :  we  may  say  that  life  began  with  selective 
reaction  as  part  of  its  original  endowment,  and  with  con- 
sciousness withal,  that  is,  with  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain. 

This  position  preserves  the  criterion  of  mind,  making  it  also 
the  criterion  of  life,  and  so  assumes  a  common  phylogenetic 

1  Loc.  dt.,  p.  60. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  20  f.,  quoting  from  his  own  work  on  Animal  Intelligence. 


202  The  Theory  of  Development 

beginning  of  both  life  and  mind  in  one.  This  seems  to  me 
to  be  required  not  only  by  the  logic  of  criteria  but  also  by  the 
facts  of  life.1 

In  what  sense  we  are  able  to  call  this  a  'variation'  is,  of 
course,  open  to  dispute.  It  is  certainly  a  variation  in  nature 
— this  tremendous  thing,  life,  made  more  tremendous  as  being 
the  vehicle  of  mind.  But  is  it  not  more  simple  than  the  other 
horn  of  the  dilemma;  hat  which  requires  the  assumption, 
first,  of  life  without  consciousness,  and  then,  a  little  later  on, 
the  further  assumption  of  consciousness  in  connection  with 
life? 

But  more  positive  advantages  come,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  from 
the  foregoing  considerations.  It  has  been  shown  that  the 
theory  of  biological  adaptation  cannot  dispense  with  a  factor 
which  is,  from  all  accounts,  —  taking  biologists  like  Romanes 
to  witness,  —  the  physiological  analogue  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  and  that  nowhere  can  a  beginning  be  found  for  this 
in  the  life  series.  When  we  come  further  to  see  that  all 
stages  of  mental  accommodation  and  development  can  be 
construed  by  the  same  principles  of  adaptation  —  a  task  to 
which  this  book  is  mainly  devoted  —  it  would  require  some 
temerity  of  dogmatism  or  some  strong  evidence  to  the  con- 
trary to  lead  one  to  throw  away  such  an  extension  of  the 
principle  of  uniformity  in  nature.  And  yet,  with  the  two 
great  exceptions,  Spencer  and  Romanes,  I  know  of  no  biol- 
ogists approaching  the  first  rank,  who  have  attempted  to 
bring  the  phenomena  of  mental  development  —  the  class  of 
facts  most  open  to  scrutiny  and  most  important  everywhere 
in  the  animal  series  —  and  those  of  organic  adaptation,  under 
the  terms  of  a  single  concept.2 

1  This  view  is  the 'growing'  one  among  biologists  (e.g.  Minot,  LI.  Morgan, 
etc.)-     It  had  early  statement  by  Lewes. 

2  This  statement  is  happily  no  longer  true. 


Outcome :  Habit  and  Accommodation       203 


§  5.    Outcome:  Habit  and  Accommodation 

Returning  upon  our  path  we  are  now  able  to  see  that  two 
great  truths  stand  out  in  all  development;  two  truths  both 
of  which  are  based  upon  the  general  fact  of  contractility  or 
reaction,  and  which,  therefore,  take  us  farther  upon  our  way. 

The  organism  tends  to  repeat  what  it  has  already  done; 
this  all  theories  of  development  agree  upon,  the  biologists, 
the  disciples  of  Spencer,  the  advocates  of  the  association 
theory  of  Bain,  the  psychologists.  The  fact  of  repetition  is 
admitted  to  be  the  corner-stone  of  all  theories;  and  all 
theories  go  farther  in  naming  the  principle  which  such  repe- 
titions illustrate,  the  law  of  Habit. 

The  formulation  of  the  principle  of  habit,  however,  must 
depend  somewhat  upon  the  sort  of  notion  we  entertain  of 
contractility,  of  the  way  which  the  organism  takes  to  get  its 
repetitions.  If  we  hold  that  habits  are  distinctly  due  to  the 
repetition  of  motor  discharges,  —  that  is,  to  the  second,  third, 
fourth  performance  of  contractions,  as  the  Spencer- Bain 
theory  tells  us,  —  then  no  habit  can  be  formed  as  such,  or 
can  be  begun  to  be  formed  until  after  a  first  contraction  has 
opened  the  way  for  the  passage  of  the  contracting  energy  into 
the  same  channels  of  discharge  a  second,  third,  fourth  time. 
The  formulation  of  the  principle  of  habit  on  this  theory  takes 
on,  then,  something  of  this  form  —  its  usual  form  —  i.e. 
Habit  expresses  the  tendency  of  an  organism  to  repeat  its  own 
movements  again  and  again. 

Enough  has  been  said,  I  think,  already  to  show  what  criti- 
cism ought  to  be  passed  on  this  formulation.  It  means  that 
the  organism  starts  with  nothing  equivalent  to  habit,  with  no 
native  tendency  to  any  kind  of  movement,  with  no  teleology  in 
its  movements,  no  ulterior  organic  ends.  It  further  gives  no 


204  The  Theory  of  Development 

criterion  as  to  what  kind  of  movements  it  is  desirable  the  or- 
ganism should  get  into  the  habit  of  performing.  It  makes 
the  movements  necessary  to  the  creature's  life  on  a  par  pre- 
cisely with  all  other  movements,  while  yet  admitting  that  it  is 
only  by  appropriate  movements  that  the  organism  could  have 
got  life  processes  at  all.  It  gives  the  organism  no  preferences 
for  its  food,  its  oxygen,  the  stimulations  in  the  presence  of 
which  alone  life  itself  would  be  possible ;  for  such  preferences 
would  have  to  show  themselves  as  organic  tendencies  to  some 
kind  of  differential  movements. 

Coming  to  supply  this  lack,  as  we  have  endeavoured  to  do 
in  the  preceding  pages,  we  find  it  necessary  to  consider  that 
the  repetition  of  movement  is  not  at  all  what  the  organism 
is  after,  nor  indeed  is  it  what  the  principle  of  habit  rests  upon. 
It  is  not  true  that  all  movements  are  '  equal  before  law '  — 
the  law  of  habit.  Movements  which  cause  pain  do  not  tend 
to  be  repeated.  They  are  exceptions  to  the  law  of  habit,  as 
that  is  usually  formulated.  Painful  movements  are  in- 
hibited, they  tend  to  be  reversed,  squelched,  utterly  blotted 
out ;  how  can  this  be  explained  on  the  foregoing  formula  for 
habit?  It  cannot  be  explained.  And  yet  it  is  found  to  be  a 
fact  in  the  lowest  living  creatures  that  the  biologist  knows. 

So  just  as  in  starting  with  life  we  have  to  start  with  some  pro- 
cess characteristic  of  life,  —  say  nutrition  alone,  if  you  please, 
—  so  we  have  also  by  the  law  of  dynamogenesis  to  start  with 
tendencies  to  movements  which  are  the  manifestations  of 
life,  and  are,  in  so  far,  special.  And  the  object  of  these 
movements  is  the  maintenance  of  life :  which  is  only  another 
expression,  as  we  have  found  reason  to  believe,  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  stimulations  necessary  to  life.  So  we  reach 
another  formulation  of  the  principle  of  habit  which  reads 
something  like  this:  Habit  expresses  the  tendency  of  an  or- 
ganism to  keep  in  touch,  by  means  of  movement,  with  bene- 


Outcome:  Habit  and  Accommodation      205 

ficial  stimulations;  or  if  we  summarize  under  a  single  word 
the  character  of  the  movements  toward  which  all  habits  of 
the  organism  tend,  we  may  say,  Habit  expresses  the  tendency 
of  the  organism  to  secure  and  to  retain  its  vital  stimulations. 

On  this  view,  a  habit  begins  before  the  movement  which 
illustrates  it  actually  takes  place ;  the  organism  is  endowed 
with  a  habit,  if  that  be  not  considered  a  contradiction.  Its 
life  process  involves  just  the  tendency  which  habit  goes  on 
to  confirm  and  to  extend.  The  process  of  habit,  having  as 
its  end  the  maintenance  of  a  condition  of  stimulation,  is  set 
in  train  by  the  initial  stimulus.  And  the  discharge  of  it  in 
the  path  which  again  'hits'  the  stimulus  is  the  function  of 
this  stimulus  rather  than  another,  and  reflects,  exactly  and 
alone,  the  fact  that  then  and  there  is  a  stimulus  whose  in- 
fluence upon  the  vital  processes  is  good. 

Here  at  the  very  origin  of  the  things  of  life,  therefore,  we 
find  the  'circular  process,'  what  I  am  going  on  to  describe  as 
the  physical  basis  of  'imitation.'  And  the  law  of  habit  is 
simply  a  generalization,  all  the  way  through  the  facts  of  biol- 
ogy and  psychology,  from  the  various  applications  of  this 
principle. 

The  other  great  principle,  on  which  the  foregoing  discus- 
sions serve  to  throw  some  light,  is  that  of  Accommodation, 
as  it  is  best  to  call  it  in  psychology  as  well  as  biology. 
Let  us  see  how  it  may  be  put  in  contrast  to  that  which 
is  called  habit. 

We  have  had  occasion  to  ask  in  detail  how  an  organism 
can  accommodate  itself,  and  have  already  discussed  various 
answers  in  equal  detail.  Our  outcome  may  be  briefly  stated, 
apart  from  the  consideration  of  habit,  somewhat  in  this  way : 
An  organism  accommodates  itself,  or  learns  new  adjustments, 
simply  by  exercising  the  movements  which  it  already  has,  its 
habits,  in  a  heightened  or  excessive  way;  the  accommodation 


206  The   Theory  of  Development 

is  in  each  case  simply  the  result  and  fruit  of  the  habit  itself 
which  is  exercised. 

This  is  clear  when  we  remember  that  on  our  new  concep- 
tion of  habit  every  act  prompted  by  habit  is  an  act  of  at- 
taining a  beneficial  stimulation  or  experience;  now  the 
result  of  every  attainment  of  a  beneficial  experience  is  to  dis- 
charge an  excessive  pleasure  wave  of  movement  from  which 
new  adjustments  are  selected  by  the  same  criterion;  that  is, 
by  the  enriched  stimulations  or  experiences  which  they  in 
turn  secure.  So  these  later  adjustments  are  accommodations. 
Each  such  accommodation  is  reached  simply  in  the  ordinary 
routine  of  habit,  and  is  its  outcome. 

How  simple  this  view  is  in  the  whole  range  of  facts  becomes 
evident  in  the  notice  of  various  of  its  applications  in  subse- 
quent chapters.  It  seems  to  allow  us  to  see  nature  moving 
smoothly,  instead  of  being  compelled,  as  we  are  so  often 
compelled,  to  consider  a  new  thing,  a  novelty  in  nature,  an 
invention,  a  new  adaptation  of  means  to  end  —  to  consider 
each  of  these  as  involving  a  great  wrench  of  nature  from  the 
methods  of  her  usual  working !  Let  us  say,  once  for  all,  that 
each  new  action  is  an  accommodation,  and  every  accommo- 
dation arises  right  out  of  the  bosom  of  old  processes  and  is 
filled  with  old  matter.  Does  not  the  one  kind  of  'circular' 
reaction  in  which,  as  we  now  see,  habit  and  accommodation 
meet  on  common  ground,  enable  us  to  see  how  this  may  be 
true? 

Finally,  coming  once  again  to  the  topic  of  heredity,  let  us 
restate  the  objection  made  by  Romanes  to  the  view  that  life 
may  begin  with  differential  reactions,  or  that  such  differen- 
tial reactions  could  not  be  variations  preserved  by  natural 
selection.  He  says,  in  a  passage  already  quoted  in  part : 1 
"Does  the  organism  learn  to  make  new  adjustments,  or  to 

1  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  20  f. 


Outcome:  Habit  and  Accommodation      207 

modify  old  ones,  in  accordance  with  the  results  of  its  own  in- 
dividual experience?  If  it  does  so,  the  fact  cannot  be  due 
simply  to  reflex  action  in  the  sense  above  described  [i.e. 
repetitions  of  old  reactions  under  the  law  of  habit  ] ;  for  it  is 
impossible  that  heredity  can  have  provided  in  advance  for 
innovations  upon  or  alterations  in  its  own  machinery  during 
the  lifetime  of  a  particular  individual." 

This  difficulty,  as  we  saw,  led  Romanes  to  throw  over  his 
own  criterion  of  mind,  and  to  hold  that  all  adaptations,  in- 
cluding those  selective  reactions  which  he  had  made  charac- 
teristic of  mind,  were  reached  in  the  lifetime  of  individuals. 
Further,  this  position,  if  true,  would  lead  inevitably  to  a 
Lamarckian  theory  of  heredity,  which  indeed  Romanes  held ; 
for  if  no  hereditary  variation  can  provide  for  future  adapta- 
tions, then  no  past  adaptations  can  have  been  provided  for 
by  variations  to  which  they  were  future,  and  so  all  actual 
adaptations  must  have  arisen  by  use,  heredity  being  solely  the 
bridge  of  transmission  from  father  to  son. 

But  we  are  now  able  to  see,  from  the  results  we  have 
reached,  not  only  that  there  is  another  alternative,  but  also 
that  this  statement  of  Romanes  is  not  correct.  The  other 
alternative  is  that  life  began  with  a  habit,  the  very  method  of 
which  does  include  a  process  which  provides  for  the  continual 
modification  of  its  own  results. 

If  we  accept  this  alternative,  then  I  have  shown  how  new 
adaptations  can  be  secured  inside  of  this  habit.  But  if  we 
do  not  accept  it,  preferring  to  believe  with  Spencer  in  a  form 
of  earlier  life  which  showed  quite  formless  and  diffused  con- 
tractions, we  are  able  still  to  see  how  such  a  pseudo-habit 
may  have  come  about  as  a  variation.  The  only  necessary 
feature  of  this  variation  would  be  that  nutrition  increase  ex- 
pansive and  varied  movements ;  that  is  all.  The  result  would 
be  that  the  stimulations  affording  nutrition  would  be  hit  upon 


208  The  Theory  of  Development 

and  gained  oftener  by  these  organisms  than  by  others,  and  so 
a  habit  of  getting  greater  variety  and  richness  of  such  stimula- 
tions in  this  way  would  be  secured,  and  new  accommodations 
made  which  would  break  up  the  habits  transmitted  by 
heredity.  Would  not  this  be  just  the  state  of  things  which 
Romanes  declares  impossible  ?  —  heredity  providing  for  the 
modification  of  its  own  machinery  ?  Heredity  not  only  leaves 
the  future  free  for  modifications,  it  also  provides  a  method  of 
life  in  the  operation  of  which  modifications  are  bound  to 
come,  and  further  —  and  this  is  the  most  interesting  fact  in 
the  whole  case  —  it  provides  that  these  modifications  shall 
take  place  inside  the  great  twofold  accommodation  of  move- 
ments corresponding  to  pleasure  and  pain,  thus  making  the 
very  fact  of  accommodation  itself  the  great  deep-seated  habit 
of  organic  life. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MOTOR  1  ATTITUDES  AND  EXPRESSIONS 
§  i.    General  View 

IN  ordinary  usage,  the  word  'expression'  stands  for  a 
passably  definite  thing.  We  mean,  when  we  use  it,  to  say 
that  the  signs,  which  we  see  in  face,  attitude,  deportment,  etc., 
of  a  man  or  beast,  mean  something;  and  that  this  meaning 
is  what  the  mental  process  or  state  of  the  individual  or 
creature  under  observation  really  is,  or  what  he  really  intends 
to  have  us  take  his  state  to  be.  He  expresses  something  to 
me  when  I  gather  from  certain  signs  about  his  body,  such  as 
those  I  have  mentioned,  certain  facts  to  be  true  about  his 
mind  or  consciousness.  The  phrases,  'facial  expression,' 
'verbal  and  rhetorical  expression,'  'emotional  expression,' 
etc.,  all  have  this  common  idea  at  bottom. 

Just  as  soon  as  we  have  come  to  ask  how  expression  is  pos- 
sible, how  it  comes  that  these  external  signs  can  be  trusted  to 
convey  the  truth  about  the  mind  which  lies  within,  we  see 
that  a  whole  philosophy  of  development  is  required  to  give 
us  an  answer;  a  philosophy  of  the  development,  that  is,  of 
mind  and  body  together.  It  will  not  do  to  give  an  explana- 
tion simply  of  one  mental  state,  like  grief,  expressing  itself 
in  one  group  of  signs,  like  weeping ;  that  might  be  solved  by 
saying  that  the  body  had  been  created  for  just  this  use  by  the 
mind.  But  when  we  come  to  see  that  all  possible  mental  states 

1  The  word  'motor'  is  used  to  include  the  effects  of  'efferent'  process 
generally,  not  those  of  muscle  contraction  alone. 
p  209 


2io          Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

have  their  appropriate  signs,  all  in  a  system,  and  that  each 
animal  consciousness  has  a  system  of  signs,  and  all  the  same 
system,  then  we  have  to  account  not  merely  for  the  single 
cases,  but  for  the  system,  as  a  system.  And  this  is  a  very 
different  matter. 

Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  facts  of  suggestion  as  they 
have  been  set  forth  above.  Suggestion  we  found  to  involve 
a  gradual  series  of  changes,  transitions,  stages,  in  the  action, 
behaviour,  attitudes  of  the  child,  according  as  he  experiences 
changes,  transitions,  stages  of  treatment  and  stimulation 
from  his  surroundings.  All  his  signs  or  expressions  are  very 
gradually  formed  out  of  previous  signs.  And  no  one  of  them 
can  be  understood  except  when  considered  in  relation  to 
those  which  went  before.  They  all,  in  short,  constitute  a 
developing  system  and  represent  the  mind  also,  as  it  is  also 
considered  as  a  developing  system. 

And,  again,  if  we  did  not  know  b.eforehand  how  a  par- 
ticular experience  would  manifest  itself  in  the  system  of  signs, 
the  signs  simply  as  such  would  have  no  meaning  whatever  to 
us ;  they  would  not  be  signs  of  anything.  Suppose  I  observe 
the  movements  of  a  complicated  machine,  going  on  in  a  series, 
—  a  machine  which  I  do  not  understand.  Its  movements 
are  not  signs  or  expressions  to  me  of  anything.  They  really 
are  signs,  however,  expressions  of  the  plan  of  action  of  the 
machine,  stages  in  the  idea  or  state  of  consciousness  of  the 
designer,  which  the  machine  embodies.  And  as  soon  as  I 
understand  the  machine,  which  means  as  soon  as  I  have  the 
same  state  of  consciousness  or  idea  that  he  had,  then  the 
movements  in  their  series  or  system  do  become  signs,  real 
expressions  to  me.  I  must  be,  then,  actually  introduced  into 
the  same  system  as  the  idea  and  the  machine,  in  order  to  find 
what  the  expressions  mean. 

Looking  at  the  child's  expressions  again,  we  see  that  they 


The    Theory  of  '  Emotional  Expression  '     211 

are  expressions  to  us  only  because  we  are  in  the  same  sys- 
tem —  the  human,  the  life  system  —  with  the  child.  I  have 
gone  through  the  same  systematic  evolution  of  signs  that 
he'  is  going  through.  So  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
expression  again  widens  itself  out  magnificently.  It  stands 
for  an  answer  thus :  not  only  why  do  the  child's  expressions  — 
mind  and  body  together  —  develop  on  such  a  system,  but 
also  why  do  all  of  us  who  understand  the  signs  —  man, 
child,  beast  —  find  ourselves  in  the  same  system  of  signs  in- 
telligible and  usable  by  us  all.  How  can  we  account  for  a 
great  organic  mind  system  in  the  world,  and  with  it  how  ac- 
count for  its  organic  embodiment  in  the  system  of  signs  which 
we  call  expression? 

This,  it  is  evident,  makes  expression  a  function  of  organic 
evolution,  and  really  identifies  the  science  of  expression  with 
the  great  branch  of  biological  science  called  Morphology. 
For  signs  of  functions  are  always  shapes  of  organs,  temporary 
or  permanent,  and  a  system  of  shapes  is  always  a  system  of 
permanent  signs. 

We  must  accordingly  appeal  to  the  theory  of  development 
to  explain  all  expressions  whatever. 

§  2.    The  Theory  of  'Emotional  Expression' 

Recent  discussion  has  brought  out  certain  great  facts  about 
the  psycho-physics  of  emotion. 

The  outcome  of  discussion  takes  form  about  two  or  three 
general  principles  which  I  am  now  aiming  to  state  in  their 
general  bearing  upon  the  origin  of  'expression'  generally. 
It  is  evident  that  the  word  '  emotion '  may  be  used  in  two  very 
distinct  senses.  Emotion  may  mean  a  phenomenon  of 
instinct  purely,  the  'emotions'  which  a  baby  a  year  old  has 
already  got,  such  as  fear,  anger,  jealousy,  sympathy,  etc.; 


212          Motor  Attitudes   and  Expressions 

or  'emotion'  may  designate  a  phenomenon  of  ideas  —  some- 
thing that  the  baby  has  yet  to  get,  such  as  the  emotions,  or 
sentiments,  which  involve  thought  about  things,  contempla- 
tion, the  more  or  less  adequate  understanding  of  the  mean- 
ings of  things  in  relation  to  the  person  who  is  affected.  A 
child,  for  example,  starts  at  a  loud  noise,  and  shows  all  the 
signs  of  the  emotion  of  fear;  but  the  adult  fears  a  loud  noise 
only  when  he  has  some  reason  to  think  that  it  means  danger 
to  him. 

If  this  distinction  be  true,  —  and  no  one  denies  the  dis- 
tinction in  fact,  apart  from  the  terms  which  have  often  hope- 
lessly obscured  it,  —  it  becomes  evident  that  the  question  as 
to  what  the  components  of  emotional  'expression'  are,  is 
really  a  genetic  question.  All  the  elements  of  the  problem 
of  the  genesis  of  'expressions'  generally  —  that  is,  of  the 
laws  of  motor  development  —  must  be  recognized  and  woven 
into  an  adequate  theory. 

And  when  we  come  to  do  this,  two  very  important  facts 
come  before  us,  of  which  it  is  our  duty  to  give  some  account. 
We  have  first  to  ask  why  each  so-called  emotion  has  the 
particular  channels  of  'expression,'  or  motor  discharges, 
which  it  has ;  and  second,  how  it  comes  that  the  same  system 
of  discharges  or  expressions  answer  for  the  two  kinds  of 
emotion  which  we  have  distinguished  as,  in  one  case,  a 
phenomenon  of  instinct  and,  in  the  other  case,  a  phenomenon 
of  ideas.  How  is  it  that  what  I  fear  because  I  have  some 
reasonable  ground  for  fearing  it,  the  child  also  fears  by 
instinct,  and  that  I  make  the  same  contractions,  etc.,  in 
my  state  of  fear  that  he  does  in  his? 

The  first  of  these  questions  may  be  called  the  'psycho- 
physical'  question  of  emotion.  It  asks  how  the  mental  state 
which  we  psychologists  call  emotion  is  actually  related,  in 
any  particular  case,  to  the  movements,  contractions,  vaso- 


The  Theory  of  '  Emotional  Expression '     213 

motor  changes,  etc.,  which  the  body  shows  when  it  is  'ex- 
pressing' this  emotion.  Does  the  mental  state,  the  true 
emotion,  come  first,  and  itself  cause  the  bodily  expression, 
as  we  ordinarily  seem  to  think?  Or  is  the  emotion  itself 
the  consciousness  that  these  violent  bodily  changes  are 
already  taking  place?  This  is  the  problem  which  men  are 
now  discussing,  and  it  is  this  which  I  wish  to  take  up  in  the 
light  of  the  principles  of  development  which  have  been 
already  laid  out  in  the  earlier  pages.  And  we  can  ask  our- 
selves the  question  in  somewhat  the  following  form,  namely : 
How  could  what  we  know  as  emotion,  together  with  what  we 
know  as  emotional  expression,  have  arisen  in  the  course  of 
development,  and  what  does  development  teach  us  of  the 
relation  of  these  two  things  to  each  other? 

When,  then,  we  come  to  take  a  broad  survey  of  motor 
development,  in  the  race  no  less  than  in  the  child,  we  are 
able  to  signalize  certain  great  principles  which  we  cannot 
do  without :  principles  which  stand  out  in  biology  and  in 
psychology  as  essential  to  any  theory  of  development.  The 
whole  range  of  facts  fairly  available  for  the  genetic  theory 
of  emotion  reactions  should  be  brought  under  our  three 
principles:  Habit,  used  broadly  to  include  the  effects  of 
inherited  endowment,  as  illustrated  by  instinct,  as  well  as 
acquired  functions;  Accommodation,  the  law  of  adaptation 
in  all  progressive  evolution,  no  matter  how  adaptation  is 
secured ;  and,  earliest  and  most  fundamental,  Dynamo  genesis, 
expressing  the  fact  simply  of  regular  connection  between  the 
sensory  and  motor  sides  of  all  living  reactions,  as  to  amount 
of  process.  These  principles  have  already  been  given  some 
notice.  Let  us  see,  therefore,  how,  if  we  assume  that  these 
three  principles  are  all  the  'rules  of  procedure'  which  the 
organism  has  to  work  under,  —  how,  then,  emotion  and  its 
expression  can  have  come  to  be. 


214          Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

I.  As  for  the  fact  of  Dynamogenesis :  what  bearing  has 
this  principle  upon  the  theory  of  emotion?  Much  every 
way.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  this  principle  has  always 
been  acting,  and  always  is  acting,  in  every  reaction  we 
make ;  that  our  reactions  have  grown  to  be  what  they  are  in 
all  cases  by  direct  reflection  of  what  we  have  received  or  ex- 
perienced ;  that  just  as  certain  as  it  is  that  we  are  experienc- 
ing new  things  every  instant  of  our  lives,  just  so  certain  is  it 
that  we  are  expressing  these  new  experiences  in  every  action 
that  we  make.  Every  one  is  familiar  with  Professor  James's 
view  that  our  minds  never  have  just  the  same  contents  twice 
over.  Of  course  they  do  not.  But  the  correlative  fact  has 
not  had  the  same  recognition.  If  we  never  experience  the 
same  twice,  so  we  never  act  the  same  twice.  The  new  x  of 
content,  added  to  the  old  c  of  content,  must  call  out  a  new  x 
of  action,  added  to  the  old  a  of  action.  If  then  our  reaction 
is  always  a  +  x,  just  as  the  content  which  it  follows  upon  is 
c  +  x,  then  no  reaction  is  ever  that  and  that  only  which  is 
guaranteed  by  habit,  inheritance,  and  what  not,  in  the  past. 

For  it  is  easy  to  see  that  in  every  action  of  every  organism 
at  every  stage  of  development  there  are  two  elements  of  dis- 
charge :  an  element  due  to  habit  solely,  the  discharges  which 
are  let  loose  by  the  old  quantity  of  content  into  the  path- 
ways fixed  by  association,  and  then,  second,  an  element  of 
new  discharge  due  to  the  new  quantity  of  content. 

With  this  distinction  in  mind,  we  come  to  ask  whether 
emotion  is  present  in  this  state  of  things.  Suppose  we  are 
taking  a  particular  instance  of  fear  when  we  know  that  it  is 
present,  and  then  ask  what  factor  in  this  whole  state  of  central 
process  the  emotion  really  corresponds  to.  We  find  several 
possible  answers. 

The  emotion  may  be  said,  in  the  terms  of  one  possible 
answer,  to  be  due  to  the  presence  of  the  new  elements  of 


The  Theory  of  '  Emotional  Expression '      215 

content;  to  the  commotion  made  by  new  presentations, 
images,  play  of  thoughts,  etc.;  and  the  expression  to  be 
due  to  the  passing  off  of  this  commotion  to  the  muscles. 
The  reply  to  this  view  seems  easy  when  we  remember  that 
with  the  instinctive  emotions,  our  case  of  the  child's  fear,  it 
is  a  very  old  familiar  thing,  not  a  new  thing  at  all,  which 
excites  the  emotion;  yet  granted  this,  we  still  may  say  that 
the  discharge  due  to  the  new  elements  of  content  in  other 
cases  of  emotion,  not  so  clearly  instinctive,  must,  on  our 
view  of  excess  discharge,  give  some  feeling  of  either  pleasure 
or  pain,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  pleasure  or  pain  tone  of 
all  but  the  instinctive  emotions  arises  in  this  way.  It  may  be 
an  element  in  consciousness  brought  about  by  new  accommo- 
dation conditions. 

Yet  this  again  may  be  disputed.  One  may  admit  the  new 
element  of  discharge  due  to  dynamogenesis,  but  then  add  a 
pertinent  view.  We  may  distinguish  content  +  its  expression, 
from  content  +  feeling  of  its  expression ;  saying  that  there 
is  no  consciousness  or  feeling  of  the  new  element  of  motor 
process  until  it  is  itself  reported  as  a  new  element  of  sensory 
content.  Quite  possible ;  it  may  be  so,  if  the  nervous  sys- 
tem has  developed  that  way.  But  we  are  convinced  that  it 
has  not  developed  that  way.  We  have  found  it  necessary 
to  hold  that  the  pleasure  represents  the  heightened  organic 
process  from  which  the  excess  discharge  which  issues  in 
dynamogeny  is  itself  released.  Of  course,  as  has  been  said 
above,  the  effect  of  the  discharge  in  movement  is  reported 
back  in  a  new  element  of  pleasure  or  pain,  but  that  is  only 
claiming  for  it  in  turn  an  influence  upon  the  vital  processes 
whose  condition  is  the  sole  direct  ground  of  pleasure-pain 
consciousness. 

So  we  may  safely  say  as  the  result  of  the  action  of  dy- 
namogenesis that  there  is  in  all  emotion  —  as  in  every  state 


216         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

of  consciousness  in  which  there  are  new  elements  of  content 
—  a  tingeing  of  pleasure  or  pain  due  to  the  presence  of  these 
new  elements  of  content;  and  that  there  are  in  all  actions, 
under  the  same  conditions,  new  elements  of  discharge  which 
give  part  of  the  movements  involved  in  the  so-called  expres- 
sion of  that  state  of  consciousness. 

II.  With  this  result  well  in  mind,  let  us  inquire  more  fully 
into  the  influence  of  the  second  of  our  principles,  Habit. 

It  is  now  evident  that  a  motor  reaction  of  any  kind  has 
always  two  stimulating  antecedents :  one  the  influence  fixed 
by  habit,  and  the  other  the  influence  of  the  new  elements  of 
content  presented  by  the  environment.  But  we  know  that 
habit  tends  to  make  reactions  automatic  and  reflex;  and 
that  consciousness  tends  to  evaporate  from  such  reactions. 
As  I  put  it  long  ago,  "  psychologically,  it  [Habit]  means  loss 
of  oversight,  diffusion  of  attention,  subsiding  consciousness."  1 
Hence  we  must  admit  that  those  actions  most  dominated  by 
habit  —  the  smoothest  and  most  instinctive  —  have  least  con- 
sciousness in  their  carrying  out.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
where  habit  is  least  influential,  where  the  content  is  largely 
new,  where  the  pleasure  or  pain  of  its  assimilation  is  great, 
there  attention  and  effort  are  strained,  there  excitement  runs 
high.  In  all  these  cases  the  stimulating  influence  is  new, 
one  which  has  not  yet  been  brought  under  the  influence  of 
habit,  and  so  one  which  adds  a  new  dynamogenic  quality  to 
the  reaction. 

It  turns  out,  however,  that  just  those  'expressive'  reac- 
tions which  are  most  instinctive  and  reflex  (fear,  anger,  joy, 
etc.)  really  do  carry  with  them  most  of  the  consciousness 
which  we  call  emotion  —  certainly  vivid  and  disturbed 
enough.  What  then  shall  we  say?  Either  that  there  are 
really  present  other  new  elements  of  content  additional  to  the 

1  Feeling  and  Witt,  p.  49. 


The  Theory  of  '  Emotional  Expression  '     217 

regular  antecedents  of  the  reflex ;  or  that  the  emotion  is  not 
the  antecedent  of  the  expression  at  all,  but  that  the  reverse 
is  true  —  the  emotion  is  consequent  upon  the  expression. 
We  cannot  hold  to  the  former  alternative.  Where  are  the 
adequate  stimulants  in  conscious  content,  new  or  old,  to  the 
newly  hatched  chick's  wild  fear  of  the  hawk?  *  So  we  must 
take  the  other  alternative,  and  hand  over  all  this  class  of  re- 
actions to  the  theory  which  holds  that  the  emotion,  so  far  as  it 
has  fixed  instinctive  forms  of  expression,  follows  upon  the 
expression.  I  have  no  hesitation,  therefore,  in  adopting  the 
'effect'  theory  of  emotion  recently  announced  by  Lange  and 
James  as  regards  inherited  emotional  expression  excited  by 
constant  definite  objects  of  presentation. 

Emotion  is,  on  this  view,  therefore,  no  exception  to  our 
law  of  ontogenetic  growth :  the  law  that  that  which  is  ha- 
bitual is  carried  out  with  least  consciousness.  The  high 
consciousness  in  emotion  is  a  reflex  effect.  But  we  would 
expect,  on  the  other  hand,  that  in  all  the  ideal  states  of 
mind,  in  all  the  new  complications  of  content  to  which  the 
attention  has  to  get  adjusted,  in  all  emotional  states  which 
do  not  attach  immediately  and  unreflectively  to  conscious 
objects  of  presentation,  —  that  in  all  these  cases  the  exciting 
influence  should  have  the  dynamogenic  effect  already  noted, 
and  so  give  elements  of  expression  over  and  above  the  re- 
actions due  to  habit. 

Reverting,  now,  to  our  fancied  situation,  a  state  of  emotion 
in  actual  operation,  we  find  that  we  have  made  certain  simpli- 
fications. The  pleasure  or  pain  of  it  is,  at  least  in  part,  due 
to  the  presence  of  new  elements  in  the  object  which  causes 
the  emotion ;  the  expression  of  it  is  due,  at  least  in  part,  to 
the  new  discharges  let  loose  by  the  central  process  corre- 

1  This  illustration  may  still  serve,  although  Professor  LI.  Morgan  finds 
no  such  congenital  fear-reaction  in  the  chick. 


218          Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

spending  to  this  pleasure  or  pain;  the  expression  is  further 
due,  certainly  in  part,  to  old  reactions  or  habits  of  movement 
which  have  become  common  in  the  presence  of  this  object  or 
others  of  its  class ;  and  the  quality  of  the  emotion,  the  char- 
acter it  has  as  making  it  different  from  other  emotions,  is 
due,  certainly  in  part,  to  the  feeling  of  these  factors  of  the 
expression  actually  taking  place.  So  far,  then,  we  have 
accounted  for  something  of  the  pleasure  or  pain  of  an  emotion, 
something  of  its  expression,  and  something  of  its  peculiar 
quality  or  character.  Can  we  do  more?  Let  us  see  what 
we  can  get  out  of  our  third  principle,  'Accommodation.' 

III.  The  law  of  Accommodation  has  appeared  to  us  to 
be  operative  in  two  ways:  first,  as  expressing  the  mode  of 
each  new  adaptation  under  the  action  of  dynamogenesis,  — 
the  organism  adapts  itself  by  the  selection,  from  excess  dis- 
charges, of  movements  fittest  to  aid  vitality,  —  this  is  one 
aspect  of  accommodation;  and  it  also  secures  by  the  action 
of  association,  the  repetition  and  permanent  fixing  of  the 
fittest  movements  in  great  habits  which  are  the  regular  utility 
reactions,  reflexes,  instincts,  fixed  expressions,  etc.,  of  the 
organism,  —  this  is  the  other  aspect  of  accommodation. 
Now,  the  bearing  of  the  second  of  these  aspects  of  accom- 
modation on  the  theory  of  emotion  gives  us  great  expectations 
at  once,  for  it  enables  us  to  bring  into  its  complex  conditions 
all  of  the  organic  and  mental  elements  which  are  regularly 
associated  with  those  factors  already  pointed  out.  Let  us 
look  a  little  at  details. 

We  found  that  a  new  object  served  to  bring  new  vitality 
conditions,  new  pleasure  or  pain,  new  movements  by  dyna- 
mogenesis. But  these  new  elements  only  get  fixed  for  re- 
currence as  they  fit  into  old  adjustments,  causing  differen- 
tiations of  them.  This  means  that  the  new  gets  associated 
with  the  old ;  so  that  when  it  comes  again,  all  the  old  which 


The   Theory  of  '  Emotional  Expression '     219 

its  presence  touched  on  the  former  occasion  now  clusters  to 
the  front  in  company  with  it.  I  tremble  and  fly  at  the  sight 
of  a  lion,  because  he  reminds  me  of  a  lion's  power  and  dis- 
position; and  my  attitudes  in  the  presence  of  such  formi- 
dable creatures  are  those  of  trembling  and  flight.  So,  in  brief, 
we  have  a  great  mass  of  associated  elements,  both  of  content 
and  of  movement,  rushing  into  consciousness  in  consequence 
of  every  new  adjustment,  and  in  addition  to  its  present 
intrinsic  motor.and  emotional  value.  This  gives  more  quality 
and  more  pleasure  or  pain  to  the  state  of  emotion. 

This  principle  applies  directly,  also,  to  all  the  organic, 
visceral,  conaesthetic,  sensations  so  vividly  present  and  soul- 
filling  in  many  emotions.  All  habitual  reactions  in  states  of 
emotion,  as  they  become  more  reflex,  and  hence  less  con- 
scious in  their  actual  carrying  out,  yet  come  to  give,  never- 
theless, by  their  return  wave  upon  consciousness,  overpowering 
floods  of  organic  sensation.  I  think  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it 
is  by  muscular  movements  of  excess  with  accommodation,  by 
violent,  often  long-continued,  protective  or  offensive  reac- 
tions, that  violent  pleasure  and  pain  conditions  of  vitality 
were  originally  reflected  in  action,  in  the  history  of  animal 
life.  This  exhaustive  muscular  process  taxed  for  its  main- 
tenance all  the  organic  processes,  —  heart,  lungs,  etc.,  —  so 
that  a  great  mass  of  organic  sensations  were  thrown  into 
consciousness,  and  by  unbroken  association  came  to  stand 
themselves,  in  union  with  muscular  sensations,  for  the 
damaging  or  beneficial  kinds  of  stimulation  that  at  first 
excited  pleasure  or  pain,  even  when  the  object  actually 
present  has  no  intrinsic  emotional  value.  And  so  far  as 
they  were  themselves  vitalizing  or  devitalizing,  they  are 
directly  hedonic,  and  so  go  on  to  increase  their  own  good  or 
bad  effect.  It  is  thus  probable  that  in  our  more  violent 
organic  reactions  in  emotion,  often  pathological,  the  organ- 


22O          Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

ism  is  exhibiting  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  long  processes  of 
offence  or  defence  that  animal  forms  were  accustomed  to  go 
through  when  they  met  the  objects  which  now  tend  to  excite 
these  emotions  and  sensations  in  us. 

This  element  explains  most  of  the  grosser  part  of  the 
'emotional  expression.'  This  reflex  flood  explains  most  of 
the  quality  and  much  of  the  pleasure  and  pain  of  those 
emotions  which  have  instinctive  expression.  So  far,  then, 
the  body  of  emotion  is  largely  filled  up  with  consciousness  of 
habitual  actions  actually  shooting  off,  these  habits  being,  in 
their  origin  and  gradual  formation  in  evolution,  selec- 
tions, all  the  way  through,  from  excess  reactions  springing 
from  varying  vital  conditions.  Certain  laws  of  their  develop- 
ment have  been  formulated  by  Darwin  and  others;  laws 
which  answer  the  great  question  why  a  particular  emotion 
is  present  when  particular  bodily  attitudes,  vaso-motor 
changes,  visceral  sensations,  are  also  present.  This  I  speak 
of  further  below. 

And  the  other  aspect  of  the  principle  of  accommodation 
lets  in  more  light  on  emotion.  In  this  aspect  of  accommo- 
dation —  named  first  in  order  above  —  we  find  the  sphere  of 
new  adjustments  secured  by  the  constant  modification  and 
differentiation  of  old  ones.  There  is  a  great  field  of  such  ac- 
commodation in  the  fact  and  function  of  attention,  a  thing 
of  such  clear  mental  value  and  such  wide  bearings  that 
special  sections  are  devoted  below 1  to  its  rise  and  develop- 
ment. Here  and  now  I  can  only  assume  what  is  there  argued 
for,  and  note  the  relation  of  the  attention,  considered  as 
mental  function  0}  accommodation,  to  emotion. 

Consciousness,  we  have  seen,  is  the  new  thing  in  nature  — 
the  thing  by  which  organisms  show  in  all  cases  their  latest 
and  finest  adjustments.  And  the  central  fact  of  conscious- 

1  Below,  Chap.  X.,  §  3,  and  Chap.  XV. 


The  Theory  of '' Emotional  Expression*     221 

ness,  its  prime  instrument,  its  selective  agent,  its  seizing, 
grasping,  relating,  assimilating,  apperceiving  —  in  short, 
its  accommodating  element  and  process  —  is  attention.  This 
all  current  psychology  admits.  And  the  psychology  which  is 
aware  of  its  genetic  problems  will  also  admit  a  further  point ; 
this  —  tjiat  in  the  life  of  the  higher  organisms,  such  as  pre- 
eminently human  life,  the  mind  has  superseded  all  other 
agencies  and  processes  in  aiding  and  securing  adjustments  to 
environment.  If  these  two  things  be  admitted, — the  points, 
to  repeat,  that  mind  is  nature's  great  accommodating  agent, 
and  that  attention  is  mind's  great  accommodating  agent,  — 
then  it  follows  that  the  law  of  accommodation  must  get  its 
application  almost  exclusively,  in  higher  organisms,  in  con- 
nection with  acts  of  attention. 

Now  in  the  later  chapter  referred  to,  it  is  claimed,  with 
some  indications  of  proof,  that  attention  is  simply  the  form 
which  the  'excess'  process,  found  in  our  earlier  discus- 
sions to  be  the  means  of  all  organic  accommodation,  has 
taken  on  in  habitual  connection  with  memory,  imagination, 
and  thought.  The  attention  process  is  a  motor  reaction, 
involving  all  the  elements  of  such  reactions  to  a  mental 
content,  as  these  reactions  have  become,  by  habit,  crystal- 
lized in  certain  fixed  forms  of  vaso- motor  change,  muscular 
contraction,  etc.  Just  what  elements  are  involved  in  it  — 
that  comes  up  later.  Here  we  assume  this  doctrine  of 
attention,  and  go  on  to  ask  its  relation  to  our  present 
topic,  emotion. 

We  see  at  the  outset  that  if  attention  is  the  habitual  form 
of  mental  accommodation,  what  we  have  said  about  the 
factors  found  in  lower  emotion  —  the  factors  all  of  which  are 
genetic  elements  present  together,  heightened  dynamogenesis, 
reflex  feelings  of  discharge,  associated  organic  disturbances 
flooding  consciousness  —  must  be  true  also  of  attention. 


222  Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

That  is,  every  act  of  attention  must  give  all  these  factors  in 
kind,  but  on  a  higher  level  —  a  level  at  which  the  stimulus 
which  claims  attention  is  now  a  mental  image,  a  memory,  an 
idea. 

We  should  have  heightened  dynamogenesis,  looking  at  the 
matter  in  some  detail,  first  felt  as  pleasure  and  pain  in  the 
activity  of  attention  itself  in  receiving,  holding,  using  new 
ideas.  This  is  just  what  psychology  does  find  and  calls '  ideal ' 
pleasure  and  pain ;  and  it  is  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  Ward 
and  the  Herbartians  that  the  play  of  ideas  is  the  locus  of  all 
hedonic  consciousness.  Ideal  pleasure,  simply  as  such, 
abstracted  —  as  of  course  in  fact  it  cannot  be  —  from  all 
qualities  in  the  content  is,  on  the  physical  side,  heightened 
nervous  process  in  the  organic  seat  of  the  higher  content  at- 
tended to.  It  is  just  the  same,  for  ideas,  that  lower  pleasure 
is  for  sensation  contents. 

Second,  we  ought  to  have  certain  qualitative  elements 
brought  into  consciousness  from  the  habitual  contractions, 
etc.,  of  attention  itself;  the  attention  is,  in  large  part,  certain 
constant  reflex  contractions  —  of  brow,  and  glottis,  move- 
ments of  skin  of  skull,  etc.,  together  with  the  organic  sensa- 
tions from  the  vital  processes  associated  with  these.  This 
is  again  so  evidently  the  case,  that  we  find  certain  qualities 
of  feeling,  called  'emotions  of  function,'  connected  with 
movements  of  the  attention :  the  sense  of  contraction  or  ex- 
pansion, of  fatigue,  of  effort,  of  freshness,  of  curiosity,  of 
interest,  etc. 

Then,  third,  a  true  analysis  of  attention  shows  that  there 
are  certain  refinements  of  attention,  whereby  the  elements 
which  go  to  make  it  up  vary  very  markedly  according  to  the 
character  of  the  idea  or  object  attended  to.  There  is  visual 
attention  to  visual  ideas,  and  auditory  attention  to  auditory 
ideas,  motor  attention  to  ideas  of  movement,  etc.,  each  made 


The  Theory  of '' Emotional  Expression'     223 

up  of  its  own  refined  system  of  contractions  and  organic 
effects,  inside  of  the  wider  circle  of  contractions  and  effects 
which  make  them  all  acts  of  attention  in  the  generic 
sense.  Now,  in  so  far  as  these  smaller  refinements  of 
effect  get  themselves  grouped  into,  relatively  independent 
habits,  just  so  far  they  contribute  new  quality  to  the  whole 
psychosis  which  the  given  object  or  idea,  claiming  the 
attention  at  the  moment,  wraps  about  itself.  And  these 
constitute  the  higher  qualities,  emotional  states  which  we 
call  sentiments,  higher  feelings,  theaesthetic,  the  ethical, 
the  religious,  etc.1 

The  theory  of  development,  in  short,  requires  that  we  dis- 
tinguish the  hedonic  from  the  qualitative  element  in  higher 
emotion.  Intellect  could  not  have  developed  in  the  first 
place,  nor  have  become  the  magnificent  engine  of  organic  ac- 
commodation, through  volition,  which  it  is,  if  intellectual, 
aesthetic,  and  ethical  pleasures  were  only  the  resonance  of 
instinct  reflexes.  Yet  even  here  the  qualitative  marks,  the 
kind  of  excitement,  the  main  psychosis  apart  from  the 
pleasures  and  pains  of  new  apprehensions,  knowledges,  cu- 
riosities, are  just  as  surely,  and  for  the  same  genetic  reasons, 
the  resonance  of  instinct  reflexes  as  are  the  gross  fixed  ex- 
pressions of  anger,  fear,  etc.,  in  animals. 

So,  taking  stock  of  our  net  outcome,  we  find  that  our  prin- 
ciples of  development  have,  assuming  the  development  itself, 
told  us  to  expect  groups  of  elements  in  consciousness  at  cer- 
tain stages  of  evolution.  And  when  we  come  to  examine  and 
analyze  consciousness  at  these  stages,  we  find  that  these 
elements  so  grouped  are  just  what  we  ordinarily  lump  together 
and  call  emotion.  And  the  predominance  of  one  or  other 
element  in  a  marked  degree  in  a  particular  case  is  entirely 

1  The  reader  may  consult  the  classification  and  treatment  of  the  emotions 
given  in  my  Handbook  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II.,  Chaps.  VIII.  ff. 


224  Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

the  ground  of  difference  between  this  case*  and  others,  and  is 
entirely  a  phenomenon  of  relative  development.  The  infant, 
and  the  animal  which  has  not  that  highest  engine  of  accommo- 
dation, —  attention,  —  have  the  reflex,  habit-born,  organic 
thing  called,  it  is  true,  emotion ;  but  its  quality  is  '  rank,'  un- 
reasonable, urgent,  a  matter  of  nerves  and  instinct.  And 
that  is  all  the  infant  has,  except  the  pleasures  and  pains  which 
are  also  sensations,  or  quales  of  sensation. 

But  the  man  —  the  child  plus  mind  —  has  the  higher 
agent  of  accommodation,  attention,  and  that  supreme  form 
of  attention  called  volition ;  his  emotion  has  added  elements, 
not  different  in  kind,  but  only  in  level,  and  in  relative  freedom 
from  the  grosser  implications  of  organic  habit.  He  has  refined 
emotions  about  his  thoughts,  his  ideas,  his  ideals,  his  duties, 
his  gods. 

My  conclusion,  then,  is  that  emotion  is,  in  all  cases,  this : 
pleasure  and  pain  of  accommodation,  plus  pleasure  and  pain 
of  habit,  plus  a  certain  lot  of  qualities  contributed  to  con- 
sciousness by  more  or  less  habitual  processes  of  muscle,  organ, 
and  gland,  going  on  at  the  time. 

And  the  expression  of  emotion  is,  in  all  cases,  this :  certain 
more  or  less  habitual  processes  going  on  in  the  organism,  plus 
elements  of  muscular  and  bodily  contraction  due  to  present 
pleasure  and  pain.  That  is  all.1 

1  A  partial  development  of  this  general  view,  with  special  reference  to  cur- 
rent theories  of  emotion,  is  to  be  found  in  my  article, '  The  Origin  of  Emo- 
tional Expression,'  in  The  Psychological  Review,  I.,  November,  1894,  p.  610. 
I  am  glad  to  say  that  my  conclusions  are  very  near  to  those  reached,  by  analy- 
sis, by  William  James  in  his  latest  formulation  (see  the  same  Review,  I., 
September,  1894,  p.  516) ;  conclusions  which,  I  think,  are  not  just  the  same 
as  those  of  the  chapter  on  '  Emotion,'  in  his  Principles  of  Psychology.  Certain 
cases  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  emotion  in  the  child  —  its  ontogenesis  — 
are  treated  in  detail,  in  addition  to  what  is  said  in  Chap.  XI.,  §  3,  below,  in 
the  volume  of  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations. 


Hedonic  Expression  and  its  Law          225 


§  3.  Hedonic  Expression  and  its  Law 

In  the  preceding  section  of  this  chapter  we  found  two  ques- 
tions implicated  in  this  matter  of  expression :  one  of  them  we 
have  now  attempted  to  answer,  that  which  concerns  itself 
with  the  psycho-physics  of  emotion  as  a  phenomenon  of  con- 
sciousness taken  generally.  We  now  come  to  the  second 
question.  It  brings  up  for  our  consideration  the  fact  of  par- 
ticular expressions  as  attaching  to  particular  emotional 
states,  and  asks  how  it  is  that  each  such  particular  instance  of 
organic  and  muscular  expression  could  have  arisen  and  come 
to  be  what  it  is. 

It  has  become  evident  that  the  general  principles  of  devel- 
opment apply  to  all  expressions,  and  that  in  explaining  any 
particular  case  we  have  only  to  ask  what  aspect  of  develop- 
ment is  predominantly  concerned.  At  the  same  time  it  must 
be  equally  true  that  all  such  aspects,  however  we  may  find 
it  necessary  to  consider  them  as  separate  principles  to  explain 
different  classes  of  phenomena,  must  nevertheless  have  their 
common  basis  in  the  one  original  fact  of  contractility,  with 
the  modifications  and  adjustments  which  it  undergoes  in 
evolution. 

Now  it  has  become  plain  that  all  motor-discharge,  so  far  as 
it  is  differentiated  at  all,  gets  to  be  so  as  an  index  of  waxing 
and  waning  life  processes  of  nutrition,  etc.  And  we  have  seen 
that  the  waxing  and  the  waning  must  have  been  equally 
original  wherever  life  was  present  at  all.  This  waxing  and 
waning  life  process  must  reflect  itself  in  the  movements  of 
the  organism,  giving  two  great  types  of  movement  in  all  life, 
however  low  in  the  biological  scale.  And  we  have  found  it 
possible,  in  the  examination  of  higher  forms  of  life  in  which 
consciousness  with  pleasure  and  pain  are  clearly  present,  to 
Q 


226  Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

classify  the  organic  manifestations  correlative  to  pleasure  and 
pain  under  a  similar  twofold  effect  on  organic  and  muscular 
movement.  So  it  has  been  simply  the  logic  of  fact  which  has 
led  us  to  say  that  this  twofold  type  of  movement,  showing 
relative  vitality  in  lower  organisms  and  relative  pleasure  in 
the  higher,  is  one  and  the  same  phenomenon ;  and  that  even 
in  the  lowest  forms  of  life,  waxing  and  waning  vital  processes 
are  to  be  considered  as  the  physiological  analogue  of  the 
pleasure-pain  consciousness. 

In  this  fundamental  division  of  movements,  therefore,  ex- 
pansions, heightened  motor  energy,  and  excess  discharge, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  contractions,  lowered  energy,  inhibited 
discharge,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  what  I  venture  to  call 
'hedonic  expression,'  with  the  law  of  its  twofold  manifesta- 
tion. Inside  of  this  all  further  differentiations  of  movement 
must  arise  as  special  adaptations.  It  remains  to  examine 
them  further  with  a  view  to  the  understanding  of  their  rise ; 
and  in  connection  with  them  further  light  may  be  expected 
upon  this  general  condition  of  them. 

§  4.    Habitual  Motor  Attitudes 

I.  The  teleology  of  all  special  adaptations  of  movement  — 
the  reason  for  their  existence,  the  end  which  they  would  have 
in  view  provided  they  could  think  and  speak  —  now  becomes 
plainer  than  it  was  before.  This  end  is  not  in  any  sense 
expression.  The  organism  has  no  special  tendency  to  show 
itself  off,  no  means  of  acquiring  systems  of  'signs'  to  show 
what  is  in  consciousness  beforehand.  The  only  such  signs 
are  these  very  typical  differences  of  movement  which  corre- 
spond to  waxing  and  waning  vitality  —  to  pleasure  and  pain. 
These  are  expressive  because,  and  only  because,  they  are 
different,  and  so  reflect  differences  in  the  processes  which 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  227 

issue  in  them.  The  subsequent  modifications  of  movement 
of  any  and  of  every  kind,  have  quite  a  different  origin.  They 
have  in  view  the  adaptation  of  the  organism  in  further  detail 
to  the  conditions  under  which  the  life  process  exists.  Their 
end,  each  of  them,  is  to  keep  up  the  stimulations  which  secure 
the  waxing,  and  to  avoid  those  which  bring  about  the  waning 
of  life.  How  can  they  be  expressions  of  what  is  not  yet  se- 
cured or  avoided?  Of  course,  all  movements  which  do 
secure  one  of  these  ends,  and  so  become  fixed  as  habits  in  the 
organism,  may  and  do  then  become  signs  of  the  effects  on 
the  organism  which  it  is  their  office  to  secure,  and  we 
may  then  reverse  the  order  of  rise  of  the  two  factors  and 
consider,  for  convenience,  the  life- process  cause  and  the 
movements  which  are  really  means  to  it,  effect.  This  is 
what  the  phrase  'emotional  expression'  does.  But  the 
'  expressions '  of  emotion,  as  we  have  already  seen,  are  — 
apart  from  the  dynamogenic  issue  of  pleasure  and  pain  — 
not  caused  by  the  emotion  at  all.  The  emotion  is  the 
outcome  of  them. 

As  far,  therefore,  as  there  is  any  true  expression,  as  far  as 
there  are  any  movements  which  are  really  in  their  origin 
the  characteristic  outcome  of  what  is  beforehand  in  the  mind, 
it  is  all  summed  up  in  the  one  antithesis  with  which  life 
begins :  that  between  organic  and  vital  expansion  as  express- 
ing pleasure,  and  organic  and  vital  depression  as  expressing 
pain. 

This  may  be  put  in  the  general  statement  already  made, 
that  all  expression,  properly  so-called,  is  hedonic  expression, 
which  is  the  reflection,  in  the  organic  and  muscular  functions, 
of  the  relative  influence  of  experience  of  any  kind  upon  the 
vitality  of  the  organism.  It  comes  vividly  before  us  in  detail 
in  the  later  chapter  on  '  Organic  Imitation,'  a  phrase  which 
simply  serves  to  indicate  the  general  method  by  which, 


228          Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

through  this  one  form  of  expression,  the  organism  works  its 
new  adaptations. 

The  particular  organic  and  muscular  states  which  are  asso- 
ciated with  the  emotions,  such  as  fear,  anger,  etc.,  and  called 
popularly  their  expression,  must  have  arisen  not,  as  we  now 
see,  as  expressions  of  anything,  but  as  co-ordinations  and 
associations  of  reactions  which  proved  useful  to  the  organism 
in  maintaining  and  improving  its  vitality.  All  of  them,  then, 
were  originally  utility  reactions,  and  arose  each  in  its  place, 
and  the  system  of  them  as  a  whole,  as  special  adaptations. 
They  fall  under  the  theory  of  adaptation  and  exhibit  par- 
ticular instances  of  it. 

So  the  question  of  the  rise  of  these  groups  of  movement 
takes  a  new  form,  and  its  answer  comes  to  require  that  each 
such  so-called  expression  shall  be  shown  in  its  origin  to  have 
been  useful  to  the  organism  in  certain  conditions  of  its  en- 
vironment. 

This  detailed  inquiry  evidently  belongs  to  the  general 
theory  of  organic  evolution.  Darwin  has  himself  examined 
the  various  instinctive  'expressions'  in  detail,1  and  proved, 
beyond  a  question,  that  most  of  them  were  originally  useful 
ways  of  reacting  in  the  storm  and  stress  of  maintaining, 
defending,  and  extending  life.  Further  aid  in  this  tracing 
of  the  evolution  of  expression  has  been  afforded  by  those  in- 
vestigators who  have  analyzed  the  anatomical  and  physio- 
logical conditions  of  many  such  groups  of  effects.2 

The  results  of  their  work  have  not  been  entirely  successful, 
however,  as  concerns  details ;  since  there  has  always  remained 
over  a  residue  of  well-marked  effects,  accompanying  equally 
well-marked  emotional  states,  which  could  not  be  shown  to 
have  been  useful  to  man  or  animal.  Darwin  himself  for- 

1  Expression  of  the  Emotions. 

1  Bell,  The  Anatomy  of  Expression;   Mantegazza,  Mosso,  etc. 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  229 

mulated  the  principle  which  states  the  one  real  organic 
requirement,  namely,  the  utility  of  a  group  of  movements  in 
the  life  history  of  the  organism.  But  he  did  not  stop  here. 
He  found  it  necessary  to  place  beside  this  principle  certain 
others,  which  served  to  explain  the  cases  to  which  the  utility 
formula  could  not  be  made  to  apply. 

Darwin's  principle  of  'serviceable  associated  habits,'  how- 
ever, is  all  that  the  case  really  demands  when  we  come  to 
get  an  adequate  view  of  the  process  of  development.  It  is 
now  my  aim  to  show  that  the  theory  of  development  stated 
in  earlier  pages  of  this  book  enables  us  to  restate  the  results 
of  Darwin's  work,  so  as  to  include  all  cases  under  the  one 
great  principle  of  'serviceable  associated  habit,'  taken  to- 
gether with  that  of  'hedonic  expression'  already  explained. 

II.  The  series  of  facts  which  gave  Darwin  greatest  trouble 
are  those  which  he  gathered  together  under  his  'law  of  an- 
tithesis ' :  cases  of  animal  attitudes  in  certain  emotional  situ- 
ations, which  seemed  to  be  capable  of  serving  no  useful 
purpose  of  any  kind  to  the  animal,  but  which  were  very 
clearly  just  the  reverse  of  other  attitudes,  which  went  with 
the  opposite  emotions  and  were  evidently  useful  in  connection 
with  those  emotions.  For  example,  —  to  cite  one  of  the 
cases  so  powerfully  illustrated  in  the  photographic  copies 
reproduced  in  Darwin's  book,  —  a  dog  in  anger  strikes  cer- 
tain attitudes  of  defence,  such  as  general  rigidity  of  muscle, 
high  back,  bristling  of  hair,  retracted  lip,  forward  ears,  etc., 
—  all  of  direct  use  in  a  fight  with  his  enemy.  But  the  dog's 
attitudes  when  he  feels  friendly  and  welcomes  his  master  are 
just  the  reverse  —  general  limbering  of  muscles,  flexible  turn- 
ings of  body,  lowering  of  back,  fawning,  backing  of  ears, 
close-lying  hair,  etc.  The  emotion  is  antithetic,  so  the  ex- 
pression is  also;  that  is  the  only  reason,  practically,  which 
Darwin  could  give  for  the  animal's  attitude  in  the  second  case. 


230         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

There  are  a  great  many  such  instances  in  the  series  of 
emotional  attitudes  in  animals  and  man.  But  we  have  only 
to  state  the  principle  of  antithesis  clearly,  to  see  that  it  is 
no  principle  at  all,  unless  we  hold  that  the  emotion  causes 
the  expression.  And  even  then,  we  are  no  better  off,  I 
think.  For  we  still  have  to  ask  why  the  emotions  them- 
selves are  different.  This,  we  have  seen,  we  can  only  answer 
by  saying  that  they  are  different  because  the  movements  have 
been  different  by  which  the  organism  got  itself  adjusted  to 
the  particular  objects,  etc.,  giving  these  several  emotions. 
We  come,  that  is,  back  to  movements  again,  and  have 
to  explain  why,  in  these  cases,  the  movements  are  anti- 
thetical. 

Darwin  himself  is  as  modest  here  as  elsewhere,  and  only 
says  that  it  is  natural  that  opposite  mental  states  should  be 
associated  with  opposite  physical  states.  But  there  is  no 
reason,  so  far,  that  they  should  in  fact.  Darwin  here  makes, 
quite  unconsciously,  an  incursion  into  the  field  of  popular 
fallacy  and  of  Hegelian  logic.  It  is  a  perfect  nightmare,  — 
which  should  be  left  to  the  Hegelians  to  revel  in,  —  this 
reading  into  nature  of  opposites  to  all  her  facts,  simply  be- 
cause the  mind's  forms  of  thinking  go  by  contraries. 
Why,  if  showing  the  fangs  aids  an  animal  when  he  fights, 
should  covering  them  aid  him  when  he  loves?  His  teeth 
are  involved  in  one  case,  but  not  in  the  other.  If  rigid 
length  aids  him  in  standing  up  against  his  enemy  in  a  fight, 
why  should  contortions  be  indulged  in  when  he  sees  a 
friend  ? 

The  only  general  fact  which  in  advance  seems  to  make 
these  antitheses  likely,  is  the  arrangement  of  the  muscles, 
whereby  they  go  in  pairs,  called  'antagonists.'  Each  muscle 
of  such  a  pair  is  held  in  control  by  the  other;  and  which- 
ever contracts,  the  other  is  involved  in  some  kind  of  an  oppo- 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  231 

site  contraction ;  so  it  is  easy  to  say  that  when  consciousness 
is  in  a  state  which  represents  the  stimulation  of  one  muscle, 
it  is  only  to  be  expected  that  the  passage  of  consciousness 
into  an  opposite  state  will  not  only  release  the  one  muscle, 
but,  by  a  kind  of  organic  rebound,  stimulate  the  antagonist. 
This  is  physiological  and  true;  but  it  still  in  no  way  ex- 
plains the  origin  of  different  contrary  attitudes;  for  it  is  a 
main  task  of  the  theory  of  development  to  explain  just  this 
arrangement  of  the  muscles.  How  does  it  come  that  there 
are  antagonistic  muscles?  What  uses  called  them  into 
being?  For  the  muscular  system  has  developed  by  use  and 
fitness.  Once  answer  this  by  showing  the  practical  use  of 
both  muscles  of  each  pair  of  antagonists,  and  we  can  then 
explain  both  the  fact  that  attitudes  are  antithetic,  and  the 
further  fact  that  opposite  emotions  are  there  with  them. 
For  we  have  seen  that  it  is  the  muscular  and  organic 
attitudes  and  associations  which  give  quality  to  the  emo- 
tions. 

It  becomes  necessary,  therefore,  to  completely  reverse  the 
popular  conception  of  antithetical  expression  and  Darwin's 
conception  also,  as  far  as  he  leaves  the  facts  which  he  so 
adequately  describes,  and  shares  in  the  theory  that  an  emotion 
causes  its  so-called  expression.  We  must  find  in  our  theory  of 
development  by  means  of  detailed  motor  adaptations,  ground 
for  the  origin  of  a  muscular  system  which  works  by  antithesis  of 
push  and  pull,  forward  and  backward,  contraction  and  relaxa- 
tion, antagonism,  in  short ;  and  with  it  the  detailed  differences 
among  these  attitudes  themselves,  which  correspond  to  differ- 
ences in  emotions,  as  we  actually  find  them  in  our  experience. 

The  latter  task  is  largely  a  matter  of  detailed  examina- 
tion and  classification  of  the  various  muscular  groups  found 
in  the  different  emotions.  This  has  been  done  with  some 
success  for  many  emotions.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  take  this 


232         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

farther  here.    The  genetic  problem,  however,  the  rise  of 
antagonism,  is  a  further  question  to  set  before  us. 

It  has  doubtless  occurred  to  readers  of  the  two  preced- 
ing chapters,  what  account  is  possible  of  the  rise  of  muscular 
and  emotional  antagonism.  The  facts  of  organic  gain  and 
loss,  contraction  and  expansion,  pleasure  and  pain,  have 
already  cost  us  so  many  words  that  it  tends  to  come  to  mind 
at  once  as  an  explanation  of  the  fact  of  antithetic  expression. 
What  has  been  said  of  hedonic  expression,  recognizing  it  as 
the  only  expression  as  such,  leads  us  to  expect  a  great  divi- 
sion among  states  of  consciousness  with  respect  to  their 
hedonic  colouring  as  pleasurable  or  painful.  If  organic  life 
has  from  the  start  manifested  itself  in  two  forms  of  move- 
ment, and  if  all  new  adjustments  have  been  effected  inside 
of  this  fundamental  bifurcation,  then  of  course  the  muscular 
system,  in  its  development,  must  take  on  the  form  of  a  series 
of  organs  fitted  to  carry  this  original  antithesis  into  all  the 
details  of  life.  This  is  exactly  the  account  which  must  be 
given  of  the  rise  of  the  muscular  system,  with  its  pairs  of 
antagonists.  The  muscles  represent  special  habits  and  com- 
binations of  movements  fitted  either  to  close  up  upon  and 
hold  stimulations,  or  to  draw  away  from  and  escape  them; 
and  these  are  antithetic  ways  of  behaviour. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  this  explanation  of  antithetic 
functions  was  not  possible  on  the  old  theory  of  the  nature 
of  emotion,  the  theory  that  the  emotions  are  so  many  distinct 
mental  acts  or  functions  which  'express'  themselves  outwards 
in  the  muscles.  For  expressions  of  such  a  kind  might  just 
as  well  as  not  come  into  opposition  with  hedonic  expression, 
or  they  might  clash  with  the  reactions  most  useful  for  the 
organism  in  relation  to  its  environment,  or,  again,  they 
might,  by  their  cross  currents,  prevent  the  development  of  a 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  233 

muscular  system  on  any  consistent  plan.  The  old  view  gave 
rise  to  all  kinds  of  dualisms;  the  dualism  between  pleasure- 
pain  and  emotion  being  most  of  all  invited.1 

It  is  the  force  of  such  a  criticism,  implicitly  felt  rather 
than  clearly  recognized,  that  has  led  so  many  psychologists 
to  claim  that  emotion  is  only  a  compounded  state  of 
pleasures  or  pains,  a  position  which  well  deserves  the  de- 
scription given  it  by  James : 2  "This  is  a  hackneyed  psycho- 
logical doctrine,  but  on  any  theory  of  the  seat  of  emotion  it 
seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  artificial  and  scholastic  of  the 
untruths  that  disfigure  our  science.  One  might  as  well 
say  that  the  essence  of  prismatic  colour  is  pleasure  and 
pain." 

This  view  of  antithetical  reactions  is  also  impossible  on 
the  current  biological  theories  of  development ;  that  is,  either 
on  the  theory  that  accounts  for  all  development  by  com- 
pounded repetitions  of  reactions,  alone,  or  on  the  more  psy- 
chological theory  going  by  the  names  of  Spencer  and  Bain. 
For  this  view  requires  us  to  recognize  an  original  tendency 
of  organic  forms  to  react  in  two  antithetical  ways  with 
reference  to  stimulations  which  give  the  two  original  vital 
effects  corresponding  to  pleasure  and  pain ;  and  that  none  of 
the  earlier  theories  do  give  this  recognition,  is  shown  in  an 
earlier  place.  Darwin  held  —  as  far  as  he  took  up  the 
theory  of  ontogenetic  adaptation,  as  I  think  he  nowhere  did 
explicitly  —  the  ordinary  biological  doctrine  of  adaptation  by 
chance  repetition  and  compounding  of  movements  which 
proved  themselves  useful;  so  of  course  he  was  unable  to 
see  any  real  reason  for  the  existence  of  systems  of  move- 

1  See  my  criticism  of  such  a  dualism  in  the  work  of  Marshall  (Pleasure, 
Pain,  and  ^Esthetics),  in  The  Psychological  Review,  I.,  November,  1894,  pp. 
619  f. 

2  The  Psychological  Review,  I.,  September,  1894,  p.  525. 


234         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

ments  to  which  no  special  utility  in  race  history  could  be 
assigned.1 

Our  conclusion,  then,  in  regard  to  antithetical  attitudes, 

1  It  may  be  said,  as  it  has  been  said  to  the  writer,  in  conversation,  by  one 
who  is  well  informed  in  biology,  that  this  view  which  requires  the  distinct 
recognition  of  movements  toward  advantageous  sources  of  stimulation  and 
away  from  what  is  disadvantageous,  is  taken  by  many  biologists,  and  so 
there  is  no  need  of  argument.  With  this  I  do  not  agree ;  and  it  is  well  to 
point  out  the  fact  that  Darwin  in  this  crucial  case  of  antithetical  movements 
did  not  use  any  such  principle.  And  yet  the  need  of  some  such  real  antithesis 
so  strongly  impressed  the  mind  of  Darwin,  as  is  seen  in  his  detailed  casting 
about  in  his  Chapter  II.  for  some  proof  of  antithesis,  that  his  attitude  seems 
to  me  to  throw  his  authority  somewhat  on  that  side  in  opposition  to  the  current 
theories  which  consider  the  organism  practically  passive  in  its  uniform 
responses  to  stimulation.  Passages,  indeed,  might  be  quoted  abundantly 
from  Darwin,  which  show  what  his  doctrine  of  organic  adaptation  probably 
would  have  been  if  he  had  developed  it.  Of  course  biologists  admit  the  fact 
that  living  creatures  of  certain  kinds  behave  as  if  they  found  some  sensa- 
tions pleasant  and  others  repulsive ;  it  is  the  facts  as  reported  by  biologists 
that  I  am  resting  the  case  upon.  But  they  have  never,  I  think,  made  this 
kind  of  antithetical  reaction  fundamental  to  the  life  process,  nor  have  they 
ever  utilized  it  to  explain  general  motor  adaptations.  It  has  been  treated 
instead  as  a  sort  of  outside  fact  and,  as  it  were,  a  mystery,  a  fact  which  the 
chemical  theorists  did  not  like  to  recognize  at  all,  and  one  which  the  vitalists 
cited  in  support  of  'vital  force,'  'directive  tendency,'  and  that  kind  of  thing. 
Recently  psychologists  have  taken  it  up  as  lending  evidence  to  certain  theories 
of  the  'psychic  properties  of  matter,'  etc. 

In  short,  this  most  remarkable  of  all  adaptations  in  biology  has  had  just 
about  the  same  treatment  in  that  science  that  the  fact  of  conscious  imitation 
has  had  by  psychologists.  Conscious  imitation  has  been  remarked  upon  ever 
since  Aristotle,  vaguely  described,  and  then  dropped,  simply  because  psycho- 
logical theory  gave  no  opening  for  such  a  mysterious  thing.  I  cite  below  the 
contradictory  utterances  of  certain  psychologists  on  imitation. 

And  when  we  come  to  compare  the  two  facts,  it  is  sufficiently  plain  that 
the  theory  of  adaptation  may  be  reconstructed  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that 
this  kind  of  functional  selection  by  movement,  and  this  kind  of  imitative 
selection  by  consciousness,  are  in  type  the  same.  'Organic  imitation'  and 
'conscious  imitation'  —  each  a  circular  process  tending  to  maintain  certain 
stimulations  and  to  avoid  others  —  here  is  one  thing.  Organic  and  mental 
adaptation  is  one  process  and  one  only,  and  it  works  by  this  contrast  of  move- 
ments from  the  start. 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  235 

is  that  antithesis  is  a  fundamental  fact  of  hedonic  expres- 
sion; and  as  hedonic  expression  is  the  only  real  expression, 
the  principle  of  antithesis  becomes,  everywhere  in  motor 
development,  the  one  law  of  expression.  The  other  princi- 
ple, already  mentioned,  of  Darwin's,  that  of  'serviceable 
associated  habits,'  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  one  principle 
also  in  its  sphere ;  but  its  sphere  is  not  expression,  —  its 
sphere  is  motor  adaptation.  All  adaptations  whatever  —  ex- 
cept the  first  great  division  of  movements  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  antithesis  —  are  '  serviceable  associated  habits,'  or 
'utility  reactions.' 

Consequently  we  may  say  that  in  any  organic  attitude 
whatever,  the  case  is  the  same  as  we  found  it  to  be,  in  the 
earlier  section,  in  emotional  attitudes.  There  is  the  real  ex- 
pression factor,  the  new  hedonic  element,  issuing  in  new 
antithetical  phases,  by  the  law  of  dynamogenesis ;  and  there 
is,  besides,  the  quality  as  such,  the  differencing  'feel'  of  the 
attitude  accomplished,  with  its  habitual  pleasure  or  pain, 
and  all  the  organic  associations,  which  are  in  all  cases  due 
to  the  reflex,  consolidated,  instinctive,  sometimes  patho- 
logical, habits  of  action  originally  useful. 

Mr.  Darwin  also  finds  it  necessary  to  recognize  another 
class  of  facts  which  he  is  unable  to  bring  under  either  of  the 
foregoing  principles,  facts  which  he  puts  together  under  the 
so-called  principle  of  'direct  nervous  discharge.'  He  finds 
over  and  above  the  movements  which  show  reactions  useful 
to  the  creature  or  to  his  ancestors,  and  also  over  and  above 
the  movements  antithetical  to  the  foregoing,  certain  move- 
ments of  the  animal  which  appear  as  such  to  follow  no  law.1 
This  very  fact  of  lawlessness,  overflow,  accidental  issuing  of 
the  stimulating  process  right  out  into  the  muscular  and 
organic  systems,  is  expressed  by  the  phrase  'direct  nervous 

1  See  his  detailed  instances,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  66  ff. 


236         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

discharge ' ;  all  it  means,  therefore,  as  a  principle,  is  that  we 
are  dealing  with  phenomena  of  stimulation  and  reaction. 
Such  cases  are  one's  convulsive  movements  when  in  a  dentist's 
chair,  the  jumping  and  clapping  of  hands  of  a  child's  glee,  the 
lawless  gambolling  of  playful  lambs,  and  the  skittishness  of  a 
horse  on  a  cold  day,  —  movements  which  are  not  just  alike 
in  any  two  creatures,  nor  just  alike  in  any  two  experiences  of 
the  same  creature,  —  and  with  it  all,  various  general  effects, 
such  as  trembling,  shivering,  fainting  in  fright,  flushing  in 
joy,  blushing  in  shame,  glandular  secretions,  variations  in 
heart  action,  etc.,  some  of  them  positively  harmful  to  the 
organism. 

This  class  of  phenomena  —  facts  which  Darwin  found  no 
use  for  in  the  economy  of  organic  development  —  are,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  our  theory,  most  instructive  and  valuable 
as  evidence.  They  give,  to  my  mind,  very  direct  proof  of  the 
main  thesis  respecting  the  method  of  organic  adaptation. 
This  we  may  see  on  closer  examination,  although  the  points 
are  in  the  main  so  evident  that  the  exposition  may  seem  tire- 
some. 

We  have  found  that  increased  vital  energies  tend  to  pro- 
duce heightened  or  excessive  motor  processes,  —  Spencer's 
'heightened  discharge,'  Bain's  'accompaniment  of  pleasure.' 
We  have  found  that  this  and  its  opposite,  lowered  vitality, 
express  themselves  in  antithetical  movements,  expansions 
and  contractions,  advancing  and  retreating,  etc.  Again,  we 
have  found  that  it  is  from  these  antithetical  movements  that 
all  further  adjustments  or  adaptations  are  effected  by  'func- 
tional selection,'  those  movements  of  either  kind  which  are 
useful  being  retained  as  permanent  utility  reactions.  And 
this  scheme  of  course  assumes  the  constant  presence,  at 
every  stage  of  animal  development,  of  the  excess  discharge 
—  the  'hedonic  expression'  of  an  earlier  section. 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  237 

Further,  the  characteristics  of  movements  which  represent 
unutilized  vital  and  nervous  overflow  are  plain  enough.  They 
should  be  very  diffuse,  indefinite,  purposeless,  highly  toned  by 
pleasure  or  pain;  diffuse,  because  they  arise  from  central 
processes  of  such  intensity  as  to  overflow  the  ordinary  motor 
channels  already  fixed  by  heredity  and  habit ;  indefinite,  be- 
cause so  soon  as  they  do  get  for  themselves  fixed  ways  of  dis- 
charge, representing  in  any  sense  an  accommodation  of  the 
organism  to  the  stimulations  which  call  them  out,  then  at 
once  they  fall  into  another  category,  that  of  'serviceable 
associated  habit';  purposeless,  because  they  represent  excess 
energy  over  and  above  the  regular  expenditures  called  for  by 
habitual  purposive  reactions ;  and  highly  toned,  because  their 
rise  is  itself  a  phenomenon  of  those  vital  conditions  which  lie 
at  the  basis  of  the  hedonic  consciousness. 

Now  these  are  just  the  characters  which  Darwin  and 
other  writers  attach  to  the  movements  which  illustrate  his 
principle  of  'direct  nervous  discharge.' 

It  is  only,  therefore,  a  step  to  the  conclusion  that  in  these 
movements  we  have,  running  through  all  life  phenomena, 
high  and  low,  the  evidence  of  the  excess  processes,  and  their 
reverse,  required  by  the  theory  of  development.  These  are 
just  the  material  from  which  new  adjustments  are  made.1 
Certain  of  these  'direct  discharges'  happen  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  organism  which  it  never  succeeded  in  doing 
before;  this  secures  pleasure  or  removes  pain,  and  by  the 
law  of  increased  discharge  through  the  same  or  associated 
channels,  these  movements  pass  over  to  the  reign  of  the 
law  of  'serviceable  associated  habits';  but  with  it  all,  the 
issue  in  movement  of  the  increased  vital  and  pleasure  processes 
due  to  success,  has  again  recruited  or  depleted  the  excess  dis- 
charge. So  the  'circular  process'  goes  on. 

1  Except  when  extreme,  when  they  may  become  useless  and  destructive. 


238         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

We  should  find,  however,  that  movements  of  this  class  are 
not  quite  lawless,  nor  purposeless.  If  I  am  right  in  finding 
that  they  are  reactions  in  states  of  waxing  and  waning  vitality, 

—  that  they  constitute  just  the  hedonic  expression,  the  only 
expression,  properly  speaking,  which  an  organism  has,  — 
then  they  should  of  course  express  something.     They  should 
partake  directly  in  the  characters  found  to  mark  off  all  anti- 
thetic  movements.     Movements   which   accompany   highly 
pleasure-toned  psychoses  should  be  expansive,  forward,  out- 
ward, exciting ;  but  besides,  they  should  carry  with  them  all 
the  characteristic  utility  reactions  which  are  already  asso- 
ciated with  pleasurable  experiences.     Movements,   on  the 
other  hand,  which  accompany  highly  pain-toned  psychoses, 
should  be  contractile,  inward,  repressing,  and  should  carry 
along  with  them,   besides,  all  the  attitudes  regularly  asso- 
ciated with  painful  experiences. 

Now  I  submit  that  the  close  observation  of  these  confused 

—  convulsive,  if  you  will  —  sets  of  movement,  do  show  this 
antithesis  to  a  very  marked  degree.     When  they  accompany 
pleasures  they  are  found  to  involve  not  only  those  quite  pur- 
poseless movements  which  simply  mean  diffused  overflow  of 
energy,  but  they  show,  moreover,  two  very  clear  kinds  of 
utility  reaction  also.     First,  in  excessive  joy,  we  find  not  only 
the  tremblings,  weepings,  heart-beatings,  and  muscle-twitch- 
ings,  but  also  the  usual   habitual  signs  of   joy  which   all 
pleasurable   experiences  show  —  the   laugh,   the  facial  ex- 
pression, the  voice  tones,  the  bodily  attitudes;  and,  further, 
certain  tensions  and  movements  of  very  evident  utility,  in 
grasping,  retaining,  coming-up-to-for-further-possession,  etc., 
found  in  attitudes  of  welcome  generally.    And  on  the  other 
hand,  in  connection  with  the  random  movements  shown  in  vio- 
lent painful  emotion,  we  find  as  well  two  classes  of  habitual 
attitudes:    first,  those  of   organic  and  vital  depression,  felt 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  239 

as  faintness,  paralysis,  sweating,  etc. ;  and  second,  attitudes 
and  acts  of  rebellion,  defence,  escape-by-removal  from  stimu- 
lation, such  as  frowning,  setting  teeth.  And  the  two  systems  of 
attitudes  characteristic  of  pleasure  are,  in  general,  antithetic  to 
those  characteristic  of  pain. 

In  fact,  so  clear  is  it  that  these  'direct'  movements  are 
limiting  processes  to  the  ordinary  antithetic  attitudes,  that 
we  are  able  to  look  upon  them  as  end-terms  each  in  a  series 
which  recapitulates  organic  growth  with  all  its  purturbations. 
Pleasure  begins  by  bringing  out  the  reactions  which  are  oldest 
in  race  utility,  then  as  it  is  continued  or  increased,  those  of 
newer  formation  and  less  universality,  then  those  peculiar  to 
the  individual,  and  finally,  at  the  limit  of  duration  or  excess 
of  intensity,  the  purposeless  convulsive  and  random  move- 
ments of  Darwin.  And  pain  proceeds  by  a  similar  series  of 
manifestations  —  tracing  reversely  the  series  of  adjustments 
acquired  in  race  and  individual  history,  the  whole  series  being 
antithetic,  in  its  great  features,  to  the  corresponding  series 
of  pleasure  attitudes.1 

There  is  also  another  principle  clearly,  although  inade- 
quately, recognized  by  Darwin,  which  may  now  be  brought 
out ;  the  principle  made  more  of  in  James's  discussion  under 
the  phrase  'principle  of  analogous  feeling  stimuli.'  Darwin 
added  a  clause  to  his  statement  of  the  law  of  '  serviceable  as- 
sociated habit,'  which  brings  under  it  a  great  class  of  seem- 
ingly useless  muscular  movements.  He  says :  "We  have  now, 
I  think,  sufficiently  shown  the  truth  of  our  first  principle, 
namely,  that  when  any  sensation,  desire,  dislike,  etc.,  has  led 
during  a  long  series  of  generations  to  some  voluntary  movement, 
then  a  tendency  to  the  performance  of  a  similar  movement  will 
almost  certainly  be  excited,  whenever  the  same  or  any  analo- 

1  At  the  extremes,  in  both  cases,  there  are  convulsive  discharges  that  are 
more  mechanical  than  physiological. 


240         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

gous  or  associated  sensation,  etc.,  although  very  weak,  is  expe- 
rienced, notwithstanding  that  the  movement  in  this  case 
may  not  be  of  the  least  use"  (italics  mine).  And  he  con- 
tinues a  little  further  on:  "When  we  treat  of  the  special 
expressions  of  man,  the  latter  part  of  our  first  principle  will  be 
seen  to  hold  good,  namely,  that  when  movements,  associated 
through  habit  with  certain  states  of  mind,  are  partially  re- 
pressed by  the  will,  the  strictly  involuntary  muscles,  as  well 
as  those  which  are  least  under  separate  control  of  the  will,  are 
liable  still  to  act ;  and  their  action  is  often  highly  expressive. 
Conversely,  when  the  will  is  temporarily  or  permanently 
weakened,  the  voluntary  muscles  fail  before  the  involuntary."  * 
The  latter  quotation  may  be  taken  to  be  the  citation  from 
the  voluntary  life  of  an  instance  of  the  principle  that  similar 
or  'analogous  feeling'  stimuli  tend  to  bring,  in  whole  or  part, 
by  complication,  semi-inhibition,  or  lack  of  inhibition,  the 
reactions  in  movement  which  are  habitual  and  useful  in  con- 
nection with  the  stimuli  which  they  resemble. 

This  series  of  facts,  which  are,  in  the  sequel,  of  the  first 
importance  for  mental  development,  are  of  especial  interest 
here,  as  showing  the  relation  of  the  theory  of  development 
now  explained  to  the  older  purely  biological  theory.  The 
latter,  it  will  be  remembered,  finds  the  exclusive  cause  of 
development  in  repetitions  of  reactions,  under  complicated 
conditions  which  force  a  crossing  or  compounding  of  paths, 
in  such  a  way  that  each  single  movement,  in  response  to  each 
single  stimulus,  tends  to  lose  its  identity,  and  to  become  part  of 
a  larger  discharge,  which  issues  in  a  group  of  movements  co- 
ordinated for  a  larger  use  and  function.  The  conception  of 
how  this  compounding  takes  place  in  the  organism  is  a  purely 
mechanical  conception ;  a  process  of  the  draining  of  energies, 
first  in  the  channels  which  are  largest,  most  permeable,  and 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  48. 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  241 

most  practised,  and  then  into  those  less  and  less  so ;  the  whole 
group  being  called  out  on  later  occasions,  as  a  group,  so  far 
as  any  stimulus,  which  the  organism  gets,  starts  the  central 
energies  into  channels  adequate  to  effect  the  discharge  as  a 
whole. 

Now  this  conception  of  growing  complexity,  or  co-ordi- 
nation in  reactions,  is  quite  in  order  still,  on  our  theory  of 
adaptation,  and  it  is  indeed  even  more  reasonable  than 
before.  Just  in  so  far  as  the  organism  has  a  means  of  its 
own  of  selecting,  duplicating,  or  maintaining,  its  stimula- 
tions, by  adapted  movements,  as  the  'circular'  process  enables 
it  to  do,  just  in  so  far  is  a  premium  put  upon  the  speedy 
fixing  of  great  drainage  channels  representing  these  particular 
adapted  movements.  And,  further,  just  so  far  is  there  created 
the  tendency  of  other,  accidental  and  more  trivial,  useful  or 
useless,  processes,  to  drain  off  into  these  great  channels.  It 
is  only  an  instance  of  this  that  the  child  learns  with  such  re- 
markable speed  to  make  great  happy  adjustments,  each  then 
leading  to  a  number  of  smaller  adjustments.  The  early  start 
which  all  organisms  have  in  the  antithesis  between  the  two 
classes  of  movements  which  express  waxing  and  waning 
vitality,  and  hedonic  contrasts,  all  in  one  —  this  secures  a 
splendid  organic  tendency  directly  in  the  lines  of  discharge 
which  smaller  special  adjustments  need  to  issue  in,  and  which, 
but  for  this  preparation  beforehand,  the  smaller  ones  would 
have  to  make  by  actual  compoundings  among  themselves. 

In  interpreting  this  process  more  closely,  in  the  life  history 
of  organisms,  two  aspects  of  it  rise  to  claim  special  remark  — 
aspects  which  break  into  psychology  as  analogies,  or  explana- 
tions, of  far-reaching  application,  as  will  appear  later  on. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  at  every  stage  of  development  in 
the  animal  series,  a  certain  mass  of  normal  process,  'set  for 
good,'  so  to  speak,  which  the  creature  brings  to  his  experiences 


242         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

at  birth.  It  may  be  thought  of,  functionally,  as  a  tendency, 
of  the  organism  as  a  whole,  called  its  'hereditary  impulse/ 
to  take  a  given  course  of  development,  which  will  in  a  measure 
recapitulate  the  course  of  organic  development  antecedent 
to  this  particular  stage ;  and  also  as  a  tendency  of  the  indi- 
vidual creature  to  acquire  actions  of  particular  kinds  with 
great  facility,  by  reason  of  these  native  organic  pathways  of 
discharge.  The  most  marked  instances  of  this  latter  are  the 
instincts ;  but  the  tendency  is  equally  present  to  the  perform- 
ance of  functions  not  so  completely  handed  over  to  nervous 
habit,  but  still  requiring  consciousness  and  somewhat  gradual 
learning ;  such  as  speech,  standing,  walking,  thumb-grasping, 
etc. 

Now  with  reference  to  the  influence  of  these  innate  ten- 
dencies, it  is  easy  to  see  that  everything  which  the  organism 
does  will  tend  to  conform  itself  if  possible  to  them.  New 
processes  of  stimulation  will  set  their  discharges  toward  these 
old  channels.  Old  ways  of  action  will  try  to  serve  as  adequate 
responses  to  new  sets  of  conditions.  To  deny  this  is  to  say  that 
the  organism  can  simply  create  new  habits  for  itself  at  the 
call  of  any  stimulus  from  without.  If  the  organism  is  one, 
then  any  new  process  must  fight  for  its  life,  especially  for  its 
life  of  action.  For  a  genetic  view  requires  us  to  hold  that  there 
is  no  part  of  an  organism,  no  muscles,  no  pathways,  but  those 
which  have  arisen  for  a  use ;  so  if  a  new  thing  is  to  be  learned, 
it  must  resist  the  old  ways  of  action  and  supersede  the  old 
ways  of  use,  by  overcoming  the  impulse  which  already 
urges  the  organism  on,  or  it  must  itself  accept  and  subsidize 
the  old  channels  and  muscles,  and  conform,  as  far  as  may  be, 
to  their  previous  habits  of  action. 

This  latter  is  the  dominating  result.  All  new  experiences 
tend  to  lapse  into  old  ones,  to  be  in  their  effects  on  the  organ- 
ism identical  with  them,  to  have  their  differences  rubbed 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  243 

off,  and  so  to  discharge  through  pathways  used  by  the  old 
ones. 

This  is  a  necessary  result  of  an  adequate  view  of  the  rise 
of  neurological  habits ;  and  we  will  see  below  that  psychology 
directly  and  imperatively  confirms  it.  The  principle  of 
Assimilation,  treated  in  a  later  connection,1  is  a  direct  re- 
flection in  consciousness  of  this  aspect  of  the  law  of  habit. 
And  this  is  only  to  say,  as  Darwin  said,  that  we  ought  to  find, 
in  certain  states  of  mind,  attitudes  struck  which  have  arisen, 
not  for  use  in  this  condition  of  mind,  but  in  conditions  of 
mind  which  feel  like  it  in  any  respect.  But  the  two  processes 
do  not  discharge  the  same  way  because  they  feel  alike ;  on 
the  contrary,  their  feeling  alike  is  the  sense  that  their  dis- 
charge is  the  same  way.  The  attitudes  are  useful  in  con- 
nection with  the  earlier  stimulations,  and  for  their  sakes  they 
arose ;  but  they  are  also  used  by  these  other  central  processes, 
which  thus  come  to  be  'analogous  feeling  stimuli'  for  con- 
sciousness. So  a  great  mass  of  apparently  useless  processes 
fall  after  all  under  the  law  of  'serviceable  habits.' 

But  we  have  not  yet  got  all  the  light  we  may  —  and  it 
turns  out  to  be  psychological  light  in  the  sequel  —  from  the 
consideration  of  these  processes  of  compounding  in  the  ner- 
vous organism.  There  is  another  great  way  of  looking  at 
the  facts.  The  use  of  a  given  system  of  pathways  and  muscles 
for  the  discharge  of  certain  processes  which  are  different  from 
those  for  which  the  pathways  and  muscles  originally  arose,  — 
this  amounts,  it  is  evident,  to  a  great  series  of  possible  sub- 
stitutions of  processes  one  for  another  in  the  chain  of  events 
which  a  given  issue  of  movement  represents.  Suppose,  in 
accordance  with  the  principle  of  'analogous  feeling  stimuli,' 
I  make  a  wry  face  at  my  physician,  because  the  sight  of  him 
makes  me  feel  in  a  measure  as  I  did  when  I  took  his  bitter 

1  Below,  Chap.  X.,  §  3. 


244         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

medicines.  Here  is  the  substitution  of  a  visual  stimulus  for 
one  of  taste;  to  an  outsider,  it  would  be  inexplicable  that  I 
should  so  '  express '  myself  in  reference  to  this  man.  As  a 
fact,  emotional  attitudes  actually  found  in  man  and  animals 
show  cases  of  connection  between  the  stimulus  and  its  dis- 
charge just  as  remote  as  this,  and  equally  unintelligible, 
until  we  come  to  see  that  by  the  usurpation  of  old  habits  of 
movement,  a  new  experience  gets  permanently  substituted  for 
an  old  one,  in  the  economy  of  the  organism's  growth,  and  so 
the  conditions  of  the  original  rise  and  form  of  utility  of  the 
attitude  in  question  are  hopelessly  obscured. 

The  evident  outcome  of  these  facts  of  substitution  is, 
therefore,  an  exaggerated  difficulty  in  telling  how  a  par- 
ticular attitude  or  series  of  organic  changes,  found  asso- 
ciated with  an  emotion,  actually  arose;  for  not  only  may 
one  substitution  have  been  made  in  the  course  of  race  history, 
but  many  may  have  been  made.  This  is  shown  in  the  rise  of 
the  'short-cuts'  described  in  the  earlier  discussion  of  the 
theory  of  Recapitulation.1  The  development  of  one  process 
or  function  may  be  so  necessary,  and  its  substitution  for 
another,  and  its  usurpation  of  the  discharge  processes  of  that 
other,  so  complete,  that  the  other  may  quite  disappear,  or  be 
so  overlaid  with  newer  superseding  functions  as  to  be  a  mere 
rudiment,  an  apparently  useless  appendage  to  the  organism's 
life.  But  the  fact  that  we  can  thus  account  for  such  cases,  on 
the  theory  of  serviceable  habits,  is  itself  a  sufficient  reason 
for  doing  so.  For  it  thus  brings  the  whole  life  of  organic 
reaction  under  the  one  principle  of  development. 

This  has  also  a  very  interesting  application  to  the  facts  of 
consciousness.  I  try  to  show  in  a  later  chapter  that  it  is  this 
principle  of  organic  substitution  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  mem- 
ory, and  gives  us  an  adequate  genetic  theory  of  the  function 

1  Above,  Chap.  I.,  §§  3,  4. 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  245 

of  representation  as  a  whole.  And  further,  and  still  more 
surprising,  it  enables  us  to  see  that  it  is  by  the  'circular'  or 
imitative  form  of  reaction,  that  the  higher  motor  functions 
have  had  their  rise.  For  in  cases  where  man,  animal,  or 
animalcule,  acts  in  a  way  which  does  not  seem  to  be  imitative, 

—  does  not  seem  to  have  as  its  objective  point  the  maintenance 
or  reproduction  of  a  particular  kind  of  stimulation,  or  '  copy,' 

—  in  all  these  cases,  the  principle  of  substitution  comes  in  to 
remove  the  difficulty.     We  find  that  in  these  cases  the  original 
discharge  processes  of  a  reaction  which  was  distinctly  imi- 
tative, which  did  arise  as  a  special  adaptation  to  a  particular 
sort  of  stimulation,  have  been  usurped  by  a  substitute  stim- 
ulus, image,   sensation,  etc.,   and   so  completely,   that  the 
original   stimulation,    image,    sensation,    etc.,    which    really 
effected  and  accounted  for  these  processes  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  utility,  has  been  utterly  blotted  out.     The  case  is 
argued  later  in  some  detail  under  the  caption  'principle  of 
lapsed  links,' 1  so  it  need  only  be  said  here  that  this  idea  of 
'analogous  feeling  stimuli,'  tacked  on  by  Darwin,  merely,  to 
the  end  of  the  formula  for  associated  habit,  becomes,  in  the 
higher  reaches  of  psychological  development,  an  explaining 
agent  of  wide  application. 

One  further  point  should  be  noted.  We  are  asked  how 
it  is  that  there  are  certain  kinds  of  activities  which  are  not 
only  expressive  of  mental  states,  but  are  actually  seized  upon 
and  developed  by  man  for  just  the  purpose,  and  no  other, 
of  expressing  himself  to  others,  —  speech,  gesture,  song, 
music,  fine  art,  etc.  These  certainly  seem  to  make  simple 
expression  an  end  in  itself,  and  their  importance  is  so 
great  that  society  could  not  exist  without  these  means  of 
intercommunication  between  man  and  man.  What,  it 
may  be  asked,  was  the  original  utility  of  such  actions 

1  Below,  Chap.  IX.,  §  3,  and  Chap.  X.,  §  2. 


246         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

apart  from  the  conveying  of  a  meaning  from  one  being  to 
another  ? 

It  is  easy  to  see,  however,  that  true  as  this  is,  —  and  its 
importance  is  fundamental  to  social  psychology,1  —  it  makes 
no  exception  to  the  law  of  utility.  For,  of  course,  the  conjoint 
action,  the  gregarious  life,  the  conveying  of  meanings  from 
one  individual  to  another,  is  an  acquirement  itself  profoundly 
useful  to  the  individual  and  to  the  race.  So  to  say  that  certain 
movements  originally  accidental,  or  diffuse,  or  hedonic  — 
these  last  mainly,  it  seems  —  did  convey  meanings  to  other 
onlookers,  is  only  to  say  that  these  movements  themselves 
are  adjustments  for  utility,  as  truly  as  are  the  movements, 
for  example,  which  secure  food.  And  that  these  expressive 
actions  are  selected,  and  these  expressing  beings,  is  only  a 
result  of  serviceable  associated  habit.  The  evolution  of  hand- 
writing, as  an  engine  of  expression,  from  the  rude  drawing 
of  objects,  shows  that  the  first  tracings  were  fitted  to  perform 
just  this  use,  and  did  so.  They  therefore  survived,  and  were 
refined  upon  for  this  very  utility. 

In  short,  expression  is  itself  an  utility.  'Expression  for 
expression's  sake,'  the  formula  which  we  so  often  hear,  is 
misleading.  What  is  really  meant  by  it  is  conscious  expres- 
sion, known  to  be  expression,  and  ratified  for  the  sake  of  social 
and  personal  ends. 

A  further  factor  in  the  ontogenetic  acquirement  of  emo- 
tional attitudes  and  expressive  functions  is  at  once  so  impor- 
tant and  so  obscure  that  I  only  mention  it  here;  it  has 
detailed  treatment  later  on.  I  refer  to  the  fact  mentioned  also 
by  Darwin,  and  discussed  by  Romanes,  Mantegazza,  and 
others,  that  the  young  of  animals,  and  especially  young  chil- 
dren, get  most  of  these  functions  by  direct  conscious  imita- 
tion of  their  elders.  The  child  first  really  learns  what  cer- 

1  See  the  volume,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  Chap.  IV. 


Habitual  Motor  Attitudes  247 

tain  emotions  are,  by  imitating  the  indications  of  them  which 
it  sees  in  the  faces  of  older  persons.  We  will  see  later  that 
this  tendency  to  imitate  is  really  the  higher  conscious  form  of 
the  very  way  of  getting  all  useful  actions  which  we  have  seen 
in  lower  organisms,  the  'circular  process'  way;  and  so  in- 
stead of  presenting  a  new  class  of  facts,  it  only  serves  to  carry 
the  principle  of  'circular  reaction'  into  the  higher  reaches  of 
conscious  function.  In  conscious  imitation  we  have  an  im- 
pulse in  which  the  very  method  of  accommodation  has  been 
embodied,  has  become  a  habit.  After  knowledge  arises,  and 
voluntary  selection,  the  first  thing  necessary  to  the  individual 
in  order  to  direct  his  life  is  to  find  out  about  all  possible  ex- 
periences; so  the  child  imitates  everything,  thus  securing  in 
its  own  feeling,  by  this  its  own  act  of  laying  hold  on  experi- 
ences, the  way  of  judging  of  things  —  and  the  material  of  its 
judgments  —  as  to  their  relative  value  for  further  cultiva- 
tion, and  their  relative  difficulty  in  pursuit.1  That  great 
theatre  of  experience,  that  splendid  natural  kindergarten, 
the  spontaneous  games  of  children  and  animals,  plays  of  all 
kinds,  is  a  practice  ground  in  imitative  semblances  of  what 
is  afterwards  life's  serious  business;  and  the  young  learn 
how  such  things  feel  by  these  imitations  of  them,  and  so  get 
prepared  for  their  actual  onset  in  later  life.2 

Looking  back  now  upon  all  the  facts  which  the  various 
'principles,'  so  called,  are  used  to  explain,  we  find  a  very 
mixed  condition  of  things  covered  by  the  usual  phrase  'ex- 
pression of  the  emotions.'  There  are  utility  elements  whose 

1  This  is  developed  below  in  Chap.  XI.,  §  3  (which,  however,  cannot 
well  be  read  without  the  earlier  sections  on  Imitation) ;  its  social  and  educa- 
tional 'Interpretation'  is  to  be  found  in  the  volume  referred  to. 

2  This  '  practice'  role,  here  assigned  to  play  (in  the  first  edition  of  this 
book),  is  that  now  made  the  essential  feature  of  Groos'  important  theory 
(see  his  Play  of  Animals  and  Play  oj  Man). 


248         Motor  Attitudes  and  Expressions 

rise  by  selection  is  plain;  utterly  refractory  convulsive  ele- 
ments, whose  lawlessness  to  all  but  mere  discharge  is  evident ; 
partially  useful  elements  which  had  their  origin  in  uses  which 
they  no  longer  serve;  elements  whose  usefulness  is  clearly 
'  outlived  and  which  are  falling  rapidly  into  decay,  —  being 
rudimentary,'  as  the  biologists  are  wont  to  say,  —  and  various 
groups  of  confusions  evidently  due  to  the  grinding,  erosion, 
rivalry,  of  developmental  processes  among  themselves.  And 
with  all  this,  we  find  masses  of  associated  organic  movements 
—  in  the  bowels  and  vaso-motor  system,  with  bizarre  and 
uncouth  sensations,  such  as  flesh-creeping,  shivering,  back- 
crawling,  fainting,  etc.  —  shifted  and  shunted  from  one  con- 
nection to  another,  till  they  seem  to  have  no  reason  nor  meas- 
ure in  their  place  and  function.  But  the  unreason  of  it  all  is 
itself  reasonable,  as  we  now  see;  and  we  have  no  right  to 
complain  at  results  which  we  have  reason  for  expecting  from 
the  carrying  out  of  the  general  principles  of  evolution. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ORGANIC  IMITATION 

§  i.    The  General  Question 

WE  may  now  proceed  to  examine  more  carefully  the  type 
of  reaction  in  which  we  have  found  both  Habit  and  Accom- 
modation to  have  their  rise. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  we  found  the  life  process  issuing 
in  a  great  twofold  adaptation,  —  expansions  and  contractions, 
—  and  we  saw  that  the  former  represent  waxing  vital  pro- 
cesses. Then  we  went  on  to  say  that  all  special  adaptations 
are  secured  by  the  new  hold  upon  beneficial  stimulations 
reached  by  these  expansive,  outreaching  movements.  Thus 
a  'circular'  activity  is  found  in  operation;  life  processes  is- 
suing in  increased  movements,  by  which  in  turn  the  stimu- 
lations to  the  life  processes  are  kept  in  action.  It  will  also 
be  remembered  that  we  found  it  necessary  to  postpone  to 
the  present  chapter  the  further  consideration  of  this  type  of 
activity. 

In  our  consideration  of  suggestion  we  discovered  an  ac- 
tivity of  a  similar  kind  also,  a  'circular'  activity.  We  found 
it  well  to  describe  the  child's  imitations  in  terms  of  very  similar 
import,  and  it  has  been  intimated  that,  since  consciousness, 
of  which  imitation  is  generally  considered  a  characteristic,  is 
probably  never  absent  from  living  organisms,  possibly  these 
two  cases  of  'circular'  activity  might  turn  out  to  be  one  and 
the  same  thing. 

Let  us  now  examine  this  circular  type  of  reaction  somewhat 
249 


250  Organic  Imitation 

more  closely,  finding  our  clue  without  more  ado  in  the  analogy 
between  the  kind  of  nervous  reaction  which  we  have  already 
seen  to  fulfil  the  conditions  required  by  the  preceding  theory 
of  development,  and  the  mental  function  called  Imitative 
Suggestion.1 

This  has  the  added  advantage  that  it  leads  up  to  further 
investigation  on  the  side  of  psychology,  and  we  have  the  prob- 
lem of  accounting  for  mental  development,  although  we  shall 
consider  it  throughout  as  a  new  stage  in  the  general  problem 
already  set  for  solution  in  the  treatment  of  biological  develop- 
ment. 

Imitation  is  a  matter  of  such  familiarity  to  us  all  that  it 
goes  usually  unattended  to :  so  much  so  that  professed  psy- 
chologists long  left  it  largely  undiscussed.  Whether  it  be 
one  of  the  more  ultimate  facts  or  not,  we  now  seem  to  have 
some  evidence  that  it  has  never  had  its  due  in  psychological 
theory.  If  we  shall  be  able  to  trace  its  influence  in  the  de- 
veloped mind,  even  that  will  not  be  without  its  reward ;  but 
it  may  be  possible  that  the  law  of  the  organic  processes  can 
be  shown  to  be  capable  of  an  interpretation  similar  to  that  of 
the  mental. 

We  may  make  it  a  part  of  our  assumption  at  the  start  — 
what  I  have  endeavoured  to  prove  above  —  that  an  imita- 
tion is  an  ordinary  sensori-motor  reaction  which  finds  its 
differentia  in  the  single  fact  that  it  imitates :  that  is,  its  pecu- 
liarity is  found  in  the  locus  of  its  muscular  discharge.  It  is 
what  we  have  called  a  'circular  activity'  on  the  bodily  side  — 

1  See  above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  4,  and  Chap.  VIII.,  §§  1-2.  An  early  statement 
of  'imitation'  in  this  sense  is  that  of  Chevreul.  He  speaks  of  it  not  only  as 
a  tendency  to  movement  in  a  definite  direction  from  the  thought  of  the  move- 
ment, but  also  as  keeping  itself  going  and  so  'accelerating'  itself.  See  his 
letter  to  Ampere  on  'A  Particular  Class  of  Movements,'  quoted  by  Binet,  in 
Alterations  of  Personality,  Eng.  trans.,  pp.  222  f. 


The  General  Question  251 

brain-state  due  to  stimulating  conditions,  muscular  reaction 
which  reproduces  or  retains  the  stimulating  conditions,  same 
brain-state  again  due  to  same  stimulating  conditions,  and  so 
on.  The  questions  to  be  asked  now  are  these :  Where  in  our 
psycho-physical  theory  do  we  find  place  for  this  peculiar 
'circular'  order  of  reaction;  what  is  its  value  in  conscious- 
ness and  in  mental  development,  and  how  does  it  itself  arise 
and  come  to  occupy  the  place  it  does  ? 

It  may  be  well  to  repeat  that  we  might  expect  to  find  imi- 
tations —  using  the  word  for  the  present  in  this  broad  organic 
sense  —  wherever  there  is  any  degree  of  interaction  between 
a  living  organism  and  the  external  world.  The  effect  of 
imitation,  it  is  clear,  is  to  make  the  brain  a  'repeating  organ,' 
I.e.  to  secure  the  repetitions  which  on  all  biological  theories 
the  organism  must  have,  if  it  is  to  develop.  The  muscular 
system  is,  as  Eimer  and  others  show,  the  expression  and 
evidence  of  this  fact.  The  place  of  imitation  in  life  devel- 
opment is,  therefore,  theoretically  solvable  in  two  ways: 
(i)  by  an  examination  of  living  creatures  for  actual  imitations, 
and  (2)  by  the  deduction  of  this  function  from  the  theory  of 
repetition  in  neurology  and  psychology  —  this  latter  provided 
we  find  that  Nature  does  not  herself  present  an  environment 
sufficiently  constant  to  give  enough  repetitions  to  supply 
the  demands  of  neurology  and  psychology.  If  this  last  condi- 
tion be  unfulfilled — that  is,  if  Nature  does  actually  repeat 
herself  through  her  stimulating  agencies,  light,  sound,  etc., 
sufficiently  often  and  with  sufficient  regularity  to  secure  ner- 
vous and  mental  development  —  then  imitation  may  be  a  side 
phenomenon,  an  incident  merely.  In  that  case  the  old  bio- 
logical theory,  which  uses  habit  alone  with  lucky  chance,  and 
takes  no  account  of  the  nervous  process  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
or  the  function  of  consciousness,  in  securing  accommodations, 
remains  available.  But  I  have  already  criticised  that  view. 


252  Organic  Imitation 

Without  taking  up  these  questions  again,  I  wish,  while  citing 
incidentally  cases  of  the  occurrence  of  imitation,  to  show  the 
importance  of  repetitions  and  of  the  imitative  way  of  securing 
repetitions,  in  the  progress  of  mind,  and  thus  to  supply  further 
support  to  what  we  may  call  the  '  psycho- physical  theory  of 
development'  outlined  in  the  earlier  pages. 

If  it  be  true,  at  the  outset,  that  organic  development  pro- 
ceeds by  reactions,  and  if  there  be  the  two  kinds  of  reaction 
usually  distinguished,  I.e.  those  which  involve  consciousness 
as  a  necessary  factor  and  those  which  do  not,  then  the  first 
question  comes:  In  which  of  these  categories  do  imitative 
reactions  fall?  Evidently  in  large  measure  in  the  category 
of  consciousness;  the  child  is  usually  conscious  of  what  he 
imitates.  If  we  further  distinguish  this  category  in  so  far  as 
it  marks  the  area  of  conscious  life  which  is  '  plum  up, '  so  to 
speak,  against  the  environment  —  directly  amenable  to  ex- 
ternal stimulation  —  by  the  word  'suggestion,'  we  have  thus 
marked  off  the  most  evident  surface  features  of  imitation. 
Imitation  is  then,  so  far,  an  instance  of  'suggestive  reaction' 
—  another  phrase  now  sufficiently  well  defined.1  And  this  is 
the  most  evident  meaning  of  the  term  'imitation'  in  popular 
and  strictly  psychological  usage.  We  shall  therefore  proceed 
out  from  this  more  popular  conception. 

Now  let  us  look  more  closely  at  this  kind  of  consciousness, 
and  find  its  analogies.  A  mocking-bird,  we  say,  imitates  a 
sparrow,  a  beaver  imitates  an  architect,  a  child  imitates  his 
nurse,  a  man  imitates  his  rector.  Calling  the  idea  of  the 
result  which  the  imitator  is  supposed  to  have  some  dim  or 
clear  consciousness  of,  the  'copy,'  we  find  that  we  are  forced 
to  consider  this  'consciousness  of  the  copy'  very  different  in 
these  several  cases.  The  copy  is  clearly  defined,  certainly,  in 
the  child's  mind  when  he  imitates  a  movement ;  and  also  in  the 

1  See  above,  Chap.  VI. 


The  Neurological  Question  253 

man's  mind,  although  it  is  very  much  more  complex  and  asso- 
ciative, when  he  imitates  his  rector.  But  we  have  a  very 
different  state  of  consciousness  in  the  parrot  or  mocking- 
bird, and  this  is  true  even  more  strikingly  in  the  case  of  the 
beaver.  Indeed,  these  four  cases  are  typical  divisions  in  the 
psychology  of  action,  i.e.  volition  (the  man),  suggestion  (the 
infant),  reflex  action  (the  mocking-bird),  instinct  (the  beaver). 
Yet  suppose  I  make  any  one  of  four  remarks  to  an  ordinary 
man  on  the  street:  'the  beaver's  dam  is  a  good  imitation,' 
or '  the  mocking-bird's  song  is  a  good  imitation,'  or '  the  child's 
movement  is  a  good  imitation,'  or '  the  man's  conduct  is  a  good 
imitation '  —  this  working-man  would  understand  me  and 
accept  the  opinion  with  no  further  explanation  on  my  part  and 
no  further  questioning  on  his  part. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  even  in  popular  language,  these  so- 
called  kinds  of  action  have  something  in  common,  and  that 
the  word  'imitation'  is  not  greatly  strained  in  expressing  this 
common  element.  There  is  in  all  the  instances  some  kind  of 
constructive  idea,  a  'copy,'  in  more  or  less  conscious  clearness, 
which  calls  the  action  out,  and  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
imitator  to  reinstate  or  bring  about  somehow  for  himself. 
Now,  this  is  just  what  I  wish  to  inquire  into :  the  nature  and 
significance  of  this  'copy';  aiming,  if  possible,  to  show  how 
all  the  forms  of  action  which  show  this  common  element  could 
have  arisen,  and  what  principles  of  development  they  imply. 

§  2.  The  Neurological  Question 

On  the  physiological  side,  the  simple  imitations  of  child- 
hood present  the  purest  type.  And  the  law  of  repetition  in 
neurology  must  be  brought  in,  in  some  way,  to  supply  its 
nervous  basis.  No  one  probably  will  be  disposed  to  deny 
this.  We  find  it  possible,  also,  just  as  soon  as  we  bring  to 


254  Organic  Imitation 

mind  the  action  of  accommodation  and  habit,  no  matter  what 
theory  we  adopt  of  their  mechanism,  to  show  that  the  element 
common  to  the  child's  imitations,  and  all  the  other  instances 
mentioned,  is  very  plain.  Current  theories  agree  that  vol- 
untary reactions  repeated  tend  to  become  organic  as  direct 
suggestions;  that  the  nervous  process  becomes  smooth 
through  habit;  that  suggestions  repeated  tend  to  become 
still  more  independent  of  consciousness  as  secondary  auto- 
matic and  reflex  reactions,  by  the  same  principle ;  that  reflex 
reactions,  when  repeated,  co-ordinated,  and  inherited,  or 
selected  from  congenital  variations,  become  instincts.  All 
this  is  simply  and  plainly  habit ;  and  habit  is  due  to  repetition, 
no  matter,  again,  how  it  is  secured. 

But  it  is  just  as  clear  to  current  thought  that  the  whole 
process  works  also  the  other  way.  Instincts  are  constantly 
being  snubbed,  contradicted,  disused,  modified,  until  all  that 
is  left  is  an  instinctive  torso,  a  fragment,  a  tendency  merely, 
and  this  we  call,  in  psychology,  impulse ;  and  these  impulses, 
when  recognized,  ratified,  indulged,  work  up  into  volitions 
again.  Now,  all  this  reverse  process  is  due  to  the  principle 
and  fact  of  accommodation,  so  familiar  to  us  in  view  of  our 
earlier  discussions.  And  here,  again,  we  may  speak  only  of  the 
facts,  leaving  out  of  account  all  the  theory  of  how  it  is  done. 

All  this  so  far  is  so  evident  to  current  thought,  that  only 
details  are  now  discussed  in  the  books.  It  only  remains, 
therefore,  to  ask  whether  the  self-sustaining  type  of  nervous 
action,  that  which  is  actually  present  in  the  child's  conscious 
imitation,  —  i.e.  eye-stimulus,  then  central  process,  then 
movement  of  the  child's  own  member,  which  itself  reinstates 
the  same  eye-stimulus, — whether  this  is  present  from  the  first 
stages  of  evolution.  If  so,  then  habit  and  accommodation  as 
depicted  in  the  earlier  chapter  will  do  the  work  by  its  aid ; 
and  psychological  development  can  be  read  as  a  chapter  of 


The  Neurological  Question  255 

biological  evolution.  But  if  not,  then  when  in  the  organic 
series  did  conscious  imitation  arise,  and  why?  For  as  sure 
as  it  is  that  consciousness  gives  us  imitation  at  all,  so  sure  is 
it  that  the  nervous  system  performs,  without  any  violation  of 
its  ordinary  methods,  the  circular  process  by  which  the  imi- 
tation goes  on. 

This  question,  I  insist  again,  as  I  have  above,  is  an  ur- 
gent one,  and  admits  of  only  two  possible  answers :  either  the 
neurological  analogue  of  imitation  was  present  from  the  first, 
and  in  conscious  imitation  becomes  explicit  as  mental  accom- 
modation, or  it  has  come  in  somewhere  in  the  biological  series. 
I  have  already  said  that  the  second  alternative  might  be 
true,  if  we  allow  a  certain  amount  of  development  under 
constant  conditions  before  the  rise  of  special  differentiated 
movements  of  expansion  and  contraction  —  as  much  de- 
velopment as  is  represented  by  simple  habit  in  very  low 
organisms  whose  life  is  a  round  of  recurring  stimulations 
and  reactions. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  reactions  which  represent 
habit  merely  could  get  much  complexity.  In  a  constant 
environment  they  would  soon  exhaust  the  compounding  of 
results  due  to  variety  of  stimulations.  And  if  the  environ- 
ment changed,  this  compounding  of  habits  would  only  make 
the  organism  more  rigid  and  less  able  to  adapt  itself.  The 
only  solution  of  this  point  —  simply  slurred  or  not  seen  by 
most  biologists  —  is  that  adopted  by  Spencer  in  his  law  of 
heightened  nervous  discharge ;  but  this  only  gave  a  new  fac- 
tor, which  served  historically  to  bring  in  the  nervous  process 
of  pleasure  and  pain,  and  so  to  lead  to  the  other  alternative 
given  above.  We  have  instances  of  what  mere  habit  will  do, 
in  higher  organisms,  in  the  endless  repetitions  of  the  same 
sounds  by  the  weak-minded,  by  children,  and  by  parrots  — 
continued  muscular  tension  kept  up  by  circular  discharge  until 


256  Organic  Imitation 

nervous  exhaustion  ensues.  This  is  characteristic  of  catalep- 
tic and  hysterical  conditions  also,  as  we  will  have  occasion  to 
remark  in  speaking  of  aboulia.  Such  persons  do  not  develop 
or  grow.  They  are  like  wound-up  mechanical  devices,  as  far 
as  a  living  organism  can  in  any  case  be  compared  with  such  a 
self -repeating  mechanical  device  (say  a  swinging  pendulum), 
which  never  gets  exhausted  nor  grows. 

We  should  expect  accordingly  to  find  evidence  of  the 
imitative,  i.e.  self-sustaining,  type  of  reaction  in  very  early 
organisms. 

There  is,  in  fact,  a  distinct  trend  in  recent  biological  thought 
directly  toward  a  construction  of  this  kind.  Indeed,  this 
view  of  nervous  adaptation  is  in  line,  I  think,  with  the  most 
important  and  thorough  contributions  lately  made  to  the 
theory  of  organic  movement.  Two  recent  investigators  have 
summed  up  evidence  which  supplies,  in  great  part,  the  basis 
long  desiderated  for  a  theory  of  muscular  action  and  develop- 
ment. Eimer  has  stated  the  facts  which  make  it  probable 
that  all  the  "morphological  properties  of  muscle  are  the  result 
of  functional  activity."  1  On  his  view  contraction  waves 
leave  markings  which  account  for  both  muscle-fibres  and 
striation.  The  series  of  stages  in  the  development  of  volun- 
tary muscle  which  biological  science  is  now  cognizant  of  is  very 
striking.  That  there  are  no  anatomical  divisions  correspond- 
ing to  the  striation  of  muscle  is  shown  by  recent  observations. 
It  remains,  then,  only  to  find  a  physiological  conception  of 
contraction  which,  while  applicable  primarily  to  unicellular 
creatures,  should  provide  for  the  development  of  the  organism 
and  the  differentiation  of  its  parts  by  repetition  of  functions, 
with  progressive  evolution.  Natural  history  requires,  in 
the  words  of  Engelmann,  that  "every  attempt  to  explain 

1  Zeitschrift  jilr  -wissen.  Zoologie,  LIIL,  suppl.  Bd.,  p.  67.  See  also  his 
Organic  Evolution;  yet  we  cannot  accept  his  Lamarckian  views  of  heredity. 


The  Neurological  Question  257 

the  mechanism  of  protoplasmic  movement  must  extend  to 
all  the  other  phenomena  of  contractility."  * 

This  requirement  a  recent  theory  of  contractility,  that 
of  Max  Verworn,  seems  to  me,  in  its  type?  to  go  far  toward 
supplying,  accordant  as  it  is  with  the  detailed  histological 
results  of  Kiihne,  Schultz,  Engelmann,  and  others.  The 
outcome  of  Verwora's  work  is  a  chemical  theory  of  con- 
tractility which  rests  upon  two  known  cases  of  chemical 
action.  Kiihne  has  proved  that  the  oxygen  of  the  air  has 
chemical  affinity  for  the  outer  layer  of  particles  of  a  proto- 
plasmic mass.  The  elements  set  free  by  this  union  find 
themselves  impelled  toward  the  centre  by  their  affinity  for 
the  nuclear  elements.  This  new  synthesis  releases  elements 
which  again  move  outward  toward  the  oxygen  at  the  sur- 
face.3 Thus  there  are  two  contrary  movements :  away  from 
the  nucleus,  or  expansion,  and  toward  the  nucleus,  or  con- 
traction. Considering  the  oxygen  effect  as  stimulus,  we 
have  thus  a  reaction  which  keeps  up  the  action  of  its  own 
stimulus,  and  thus  perpetuates  itself,  giving  just  the  type 
of  reaction  which  the  theory  outlined  above  calls  '  circular.' 
Verworn  pushes  the  claim  of  this  type  of  vital  process  right 
up  through  all  the  forms  of  muscular  action  —  just  as  Eimer 
finds  only  the  one  type  of  function  necessary,  with  repetition, 
to  account  for  all  the  morphological  variations.  I  am  cer- 
tainly, therefore,  in  touch  with  biological  authorities  in 

1  Quoted  by  Soury,  Revue  Philosophique,  July,  1893,  p.  45. 

1  Die  Bewegung  der  lebendigen  Substanz  (Jena,  1892).  Verworn's  work 
is  well  summarized  by  Soury  (see  last  note).  Cf.  Burdon  Sanderson's 
remarks  on  'Chemiotaxis'  in  Nature,  Sept.  14,  1893,  p.  471.  I  say  'in  its 
type,'  since  the  particular  chemical  mode  of  stimulation  which  Verworn 
makes  exclusively  the  basis  of  life  may  not  be,  and  probably  is  not,  the  only 
kind  of  stimulus  to  which  the  organism  effects  the  same  typical  kind  of  circu- 
lar reaction. 

3  The  exhaustion  of  the  nucleus  by  stimulation  is  shown  by  the  work  of 
Hodge,  Changes  due  to  Functional  Activity  oj  Nerve  Cells  (Boston,  1893). 


258  Organic  Imitation 

claiming  that  this  type  of  reaction  is  essential  to  neurological 
development;  and  especially  so  when  we  come  to  see,  in 
what  follows,  that  the  progress  of  consciousness  can  be  ac- 
counted for  in  stages  corresponding,  in  its  great  features,  with 
the  stages  of  differentiation  required  by  the  physiological 
and  anatomical  theories. 

Further,  recent  researches  on  the  behaviour  of  unicellu- 
lar organisms  and  of  plants  show  the  same  kind  of  so-called 
selective  or  'nervous  property,'  with  antithetic  adaptations 
of  attraction  and  repulsion.  These  creatures  develop  not 
by  remaining  still  and  awaiting  the  accidental  repetition  of 
stimulations  by  storming  or  assault.  On  the  contrary, 
they  do  exactly  what  we  have  long  thought  it  the  exclusive 
right  of  higher  conscious  creatures  to  do;  they  go  after, 
or  shrink  from,  a  stimulating  influence,  according  as  its 
former  impression  has  been  beneficial  or  damaging.1  In 
other  words,  they  perform  reactions  of  the  stimulus-main- 
taining, or  imitative,  type.  Binet 2  draws  the  conclusion 
that  protozoa  have  memory,  choice,  volition;  that  is,  as  I 
should  prefer  to  say,  they  behave  as  though  they  had.  Bunge, 
in  his  lectures  on  physiological  chemistry,  after  describing  the 
actions  of  certain  'apparently  quite  structureless'  creatures, 
Vampyrella  and  Colpodella,  says,  "The  behaviour  of  these 
monads  in  their  search  after  food,  and  their  method  of  ab- 
sorbing it,  is  so  remarkable,  that  one  can  hardly  avoid  the 
conclusion  that  the  acts  are  those  of  conscious  beings." 
"Later  on,"  says  a  writer  in  the  British  Medical  Journal,3 
"he  gives  the  still  more  remarkable  case  of  the  orcellae. 
Whenever  an  attempt  is  made  to  place  them  in  an  inconvenient 
position,  they  are  always  able  by  the  development  of  gas 

1  Jennings's  work,  Behaviour  oj  Lower  Organisms  (1906),  is  now  the  best 
treatise  on  its  topic. 

2  Psychic  Life  of  Micro-organisms.  3  May  12,  1894,  p.  1027. 


The  Neurological  Question  259 

bubbles  of  appropriate  size  and  at  the  proper  spot,  to  right 
themselves  .  .  .  etc.  'It  cannot  be  denied,'  says  Engel- 
mann,  'that  these  facts  point  to  psychical  processes  in  the 
protoplasm.'"  Late  researches  showing  the  effect  of  lights 
of  different  colours  upon  these  elementary  creatures  is  also 
in  evidence.  They  swarm  into  certain  lights  and  avoid  others. 
Certain  bacteria  distinguish  the  trillionth  part  of  a  milli- 
gramme of  certain  substances  in  solution  —  showing  lively 
attraction  —  quantities  which  the  tests  of  chemical  reaction 
and  the  finest  chemical  balances  fail  to  detect.  If  extract  of 
meat  be  exposed  near  these  creatures,  which  feed  on  it,  they 
swarm  toward  it  from  afar,  crawling  over  one  another.  But 
just  as  soon  as  a  little  poisonous  extract,  in  the  most  minute 
quantity  conceivable,  be  added,  the  bacteria  fly  from  the 
mouth  of  the  tubes  in  haste,  with  all  the  external  signs  of 
intelligence  and  fear. 

In  regard  to  plants,  the  recent  evidence  of  their  active 
responses  to  stimulations  of  all  kinds  by  extension  and  re- 
traction is  simply  remarkable.  Pfeffer  has  shown  the  con- 
ditions of  the  perpetual  movements  known  as  geotropism, 
hydrotropism,  heliotropism  in  plants.  The  fact  of  twining 
movement  in  the  tendrils  of  various  plants  has  been  subjected 
by  this  investigator  to  delicate  tests.  He  finds  that  the  ten- 
drils of  the  pea  will  twine  about  a  thread  of  silk  which  exerts  a 
pressure  of  only  the  ioo,oooth  part  of  a  milligramme,  while 
the  force  of  the  wind  and  the  rain  or  the  constant  pressure 
of  a  stream  of  mercury,  have  no  effect  whatever.  The  ten- 
drils distinguish  between  liquid  and  solid  touches.  A  wound 
upon  a  plant  is  a  signal  for  a  movement  of  protoplasm  through- 
out the  entire  plant,  and  a  migration  toward  the  damaged 
part.  "It  is,"  says  Pfeffer,  "just  as  if  the  plant  had  the 
power  of  moving  itself.  Its  sensibility  is  developed  to  the 
highest  degree,  and  it  reacts  to  light,  heat,  contact,  electricity, 


260  Organic  Imitation 

and  chemical  influences."  x  The  researches  of  Hegler  show 
that  if  a  weight  be  attached  to  a  growth  stem  of  a  plant, 
greater  mechanical  strength  is  developed  in  the  stem  to  with- 
stand the  weight,  a  fact  analogous  to  the  fact  shown  by  Waller 
that  an  isolated  muscle  is  able  to  do  more  work  when  a 
greater  demand  is  made  upon  it  in  the  way  of  resistance.2 
Growing  roots  show  enormously  increased  growth  power  when 
resistances  are  put  in  their  way.  The  fruit  buds  of  certain 
plants  resist  the  action  of  gravity,  growing  upward,  as  long 
as  the  germinal  vesicles  are  uninjured.  All  the  other  parts 
of  the  buds  and  flower  may  be  cut  away,  but  it  still  grows 
serenely  up.  But  only  let  the  germinal  vesicles  be  re- 
moved, —  parts  which  in  size  and  weight  are  innnitesimally 
smaller  than  these  others,  —  and  the  whole  bough  sinks 
toward  the  earth. 

The  theory  adopted  by  the  great  botanist  mentioned, 
Pfeffer,  in  explaining  these  phenomena,  falls  in  so  easily, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  with  those  of  Eimer  and  Verworn  al- 
ready described,  that  it  even  suggests  the  via  media  which  is 
required  by  the  doctrine  of  accommodation  through  the  law 
of  'excess'  expounded  in  the  foregoing  pages.  Says  Pfef- 
fer: "Having  a  view  to  all  the  particulars  in  the  process  of 
reaction  and  its  effects,  we  find  that  the  essential  principle 
of  all  these  phenomena  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  produc- 
tion of  a  central  organic  response  (Auslosung,  detente,  release, 
or  'trigger-action').  This  is  the  only  definition  which  covers 
all  the  phenomena.  .  .  .  And  it  clearly  results  from  it  that 
irritability  is  never  simply  the  result  of  the  stimuli  which 
bring  out  the  reaction ;  these  only  serve  to  discover  the  prop- 
erties and  the  specific  agencies  of  the  organism  itself,  and 

1  Pfeffer's  '  Address  at  the  first  general  meeting  of  the  Society  of  German 
Naturalists  and  Physicians,'  at  Nuremberg.  See  Revue  Scientifique,  Dec.  9, 
1893,  and  Nature,  April  19,  1894.  2  Brain,  XV.,  p.  388. 


The  Neurological  Question  261 

that  the  whole  proceedings  is  due  to  the  peculiar  energy  of 
the  organism.  ...  A  simple  mechanical  action,  for  ex- 
ample, which  represents  an  equivalent  transformation  of 
energy,  does  not  constitute  an  irritation,  although  in  the  chain 
of  phenomena  due  to  irritability,  there  is  more  than  one  such 
transformation ;  for  there  is  never  irritation  without  an  ex- 
ternal or  internal  stimulant  which  sets  in  play  the  potential 
energy  of  the  plant.  Here  we  are  dealing  with  phenomena 
of  another  order  than  those  of  a  membrane  drawing  in  water 
by  stretching,  or  of  a  cell  filling  itself  by  osmosis,  or  finally  of 
a  branch  bending  under  a  weight."  Further,  in  certain  kinds 
of  reaction,  such  as  heliotropism,  etc.,  Pfeffer  points  out  the 
ability  of  the  organism  to  '  release '  its  energies  again  and  again 
to  the  same  stimulus,  and  so  to  keep  its  processes  a-going: 
"However  little  the  ensemble  of  effects  follow  the  release  au- 
tomatically, nevertheless  the  organism  may  prolong  a  reaction 
once  provoked,  or,  after  reacting,  re-establish  the  state  favour- 
able to  the  reaction"  *  Uniform  conditions,  also,  such  as  air, 
temperature,  etc.,  he  holds  to  afford  constant  stimulation  by 
which  the  organism  is  kept  in  a  state  of  static  contraction. 
Plants  continue  to  grow  in  forced  directions  some  time  after 
being  again  set  free.  "If  the  temperature  remains  constant, 
the  plant  finds  itself  in  a  state  of  static  irritation  —  a  con- 
dition necessary  to  vital  activity.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  cer- 
tain permanent  influences  are  general  and  absolute  conditions 
of  the  functioning  of  the  organism."  2  This,  it  is  clear,  is  in 
full  accord  with  the  theory  of  Verworn  and  with  the  oxygen 
discovery  of  Engelmann,  and  recognizes  the  ability  of  the 
lowest  organisms  to  produce  already  reactions  of  the  circular 
or  imitative  type. 

The  general  theory  of  Auslosung,  or  'trigger-action,'  stated 
by  Pfeffer,  is  as  old,  he  says,  as  his  work  on  Physiology  (1881), 

1  Revue  Scientifique,  loc.  cit.,  p.  741.     Italics  mine.        2  Pfeffer,  loc.  cit. 


262  Organic  Imitation 

and  his  Osmotische  Untersuchungen  (1877),  and  he  also  traces 
it  to  Dutrochet  (1832).  This  is  interesting,  I  think,  on 
account  of  its  close  approach  to  the  heightened  nervous  energy 
of  Spencer,  which  also  turns  upon  a  storing  up  of  potential 
energy.  Yet  I  am  not  able  to  discover  that  Pfeffer  uses  this 
'excess'  storage  for  purposes  of  the  further  adaptation  of  the 
organism:  a  limitation  of  view  which  could  not  well  be 
avoided  in  observing  the  actions  of  plants  alone,  which  do  not, 
as  animals  do,  learn  new  adapted  movements  before  our  very 
eyes.  He  seems  simply  to  recognize  it  as  there,  to  account  for 
reactions  actually  observed.1 

Of  course  this  class  of  facts,  which  show  the  same  kind  of 
selective  reaction  in  lower  organisms  as  in  the  higher,  where 
consciousness  is  present,2  may  be  used  to  support  a  certain 
dualism  of  chemistry  and  life.  This  is  done  among  some  later 
biologists,  the  so-called  'new  vitalists' ;  but  psychologists  are 
becoming  so  familiar  with  the  problems  which  demand  a 
reconciliation  of  form  and  content,  and  so  willing,  for  purposes 
of  science,  to  state  everything  in  terms  of  content,  that  this 
need  not  trouble  them  much.  It  is  well  to  recognize,  how- 
ever, that  if  organic  and  mental  accommodation  are,  as  I  am 
endeavouring  to  prove,  one  and  the  same  thing,  then  the 
psychologist  may  have  more  right  than  is  customarily  given 
him  of  solving  the  dualism  in  this  particular  case  by  inter- 
preting even  the  affinities  of  chemistry  after  analogy  with  the 
selective  function  of  consciousness.3 

1  Professor  Jennings  (loc.,  tit.),  who  advocates  the  '  trial-and-error '  theory 
of  accommodation,  insists  also  upon  the  complex  character  of  the  inner 
release  processes. 

2  See  an  interesting  collection  of  additional  facts  showing  the  '  nervous 
property'  in  low  organisms,  in  Orr,  Theory  of  Development  and  Heredity, 
Chap.  IV.     The  authors  cited  are  so  easily  accessible  that  I  do  not  quote  fur- 
ther from  very  many  available  instances. 

3  As  do,  among  naturalists,  Lloyd  Morgan,  and  among  philosophers, 
Paulsen. 


The  Neurological  Question  263 

The  bearing  of  the  present  condition  of  neurological  re- 
search is  now  sufficiently  evident  from  the  evidence  cited. 
Whatever  else  it  shows,  this  is  clear,  that  wherever  there  is 
life  there  is  irritability,  nervous  property.  Further,  wherever 
there  is  life  there  is  the  spontaneous  selection  of  stimuli  and 
the  necessary  motor  accommodations.  Wherever  there  is  life 
there  is  means  of  continuing  advantageous  stimulations  by 
drawing  up  to  them  by  active  movement,  or  by  other  actions 
whose  evident  result  is  the  same.  Such  a  property  could  only 
have  arisen  by  the  natural  selection  of  the  organisms  which 
were  endowed,  by  variation  or  otherwise  (or  by  its  abrupt 
appearance  with  life  itself),  with  a  central  physiological  pro- 
cess of  a  kind  by  which  the  contracting  energies  of  the  organism 
were  directed  into  certain  favourable  pathways  and  withheld 
from  other  pathways.  This  is  the  principle  of  '  circular '  ac- 
tion with  'motor excess'  as  worked  out  above. 

All  this  is  equally  true  of  the  reactions  which  are  con- 
sciously selective  or  inhibitory ;  the  two  great  agents  of  such 
selection  being  attention,  and  pleasure  and  pain.  I  ac- 
cordingly claim  that  the  evidence  of  biology  is  in  favour  of  the 
conclusion  that  the  phenomena  of  'excess'  in  unicellular 
creatures  are,  in  some  way,  the  nervous  analogues  to  these 
conscious  functions.  How  they  are  involved  in  pleasure  and 
pain  states  of  consciousness  has  already  been  touched  upon  in 
part.  The  theory  of  the  rise  of  attention  is  to  follow  below. 

The  adaptation  of  all  organisms  is  secured,  therefore,  by 
their  tendency  to  act  so  as  to  reproduce  or  maintain  stimu- 
lations which  are  beneficial.1  In  this  way  only  can  new 

1  Professor  C.  S.  Minot  has  called  my  attention  to  the  similarity  to  this  view 
of  that  of  Pfliiger  in  his  '  Teologischen  Mechanik  der  lebendigen  Natur' 
(reprinted  from  Pfliiger's  Archiv,  Bd.  XV.,  1877).  Although  reached  purely 
from  a  physiological  point  of  view,  I  find  Pfliiger's  idea  and  illustrations  quite 
consonant  with  the  views  of  the  text.  See  especially,  in  the  paper  cited, 
§  3»  PP-  37  ff->  t*16  teologisches  Causalgesetz:  "  die  Ursache  jedes  Bediirf- 


264  Organic  Imitation 

reactions  be  made  available  for  repetition,  and  so  secured  to 
habit.  But  this  reaction,  which  tends  to  secure  a  continuation 
of  its  own  stimulation,  is  exactly  the  nervous  process  of  con- 
scious imitation.  Hence  we  may  say  that  all  organic  adap- 
tation in  a  changing  environment  is  a  phenomenon  of  bio- 
logical or  organic  imitation.1 

§  3.   The  Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association 

In  the  nervous  processes  so  far  sketched  we  have,  I  think, 
the  adequate  basis  of  the  development  of  an  organism  up  to 
a  certain  point.  It  is  evident  that,  in  it  all,  the  organism  is 
directly  dependent  upon  the  actual  stimulating  agencies  of 
nature.  Sensations,  perceptions,  objects,  are  necessary  to 
call  out  the  reactions  characteristic  of  it.  And  who  would 

nisses  eines  lebendigen  Wesens  ist  zugleich  die  Ursache  der  Befriedegung  des 
Bediirfnisses." 

1  The  use  of  the  word  'imitation'  in  this  wide  sense  has  been  justly  criti- 
cised ;  but  I  am  at  a  loss  to  suggest  a  better  term.  Besides,  it  is  the  essence 
of  my  contention  that  the  method  of  organic  adaptation  is  by  reactions  of  this 
identical  type  with  further  repetitions  of  them.  The  term  'adaptation' 
is  too  general.  '  Repetition,'  the  word  used  by  the  biologists,  is  too  narrow, 
since  it  is  only  repetitions  brought  about  in  part  by  the  organism  itself  which 
I  have  in  mind,  not  all  repetitions,  as  the  old  biological  theory  of  adaptation  is 
accustomed  to  hold.  One  of  my  correspondents  —  and  so  also  a  critic  in  the 
Academy  —  thinks ' habit '  covers  it;  but  it  is  just  my  point  that  it  does  not 
cover  it.  I  am  asking  just  how  habit  could  ever  start  and  be  controlled  — 
apart  from  fortuitous  lucky  chances.  Of  course  this  method  of  accommoda- 
tion itself  becomes  a  habit :  the  fact  of  imitation  by  children  shows  it.  But 
the  main  function  of  the  thing  even  then  is  that  of  modifying  habits  by  the 
new  actions  which  the  child  learns  through  its  imitations.  If  any  one  will 
suggest  a  more  happy  term  for  the  reaction  which  is  at  once  a  new  accommoda- 
tion to  any  sort  of  stimulation  and  the  beginning  oj  a  habit  or  tendency  to  get 
that  sort  oj  stimulation  again,  I  shall  hail  it  gladly.  In  the  meantime  I  use 
the  word  which  expresses  the  type  to  which  the  reaction  undoubtedly  belongs, 
even  at  the  risk  of  being  charged  with  a  desire  to  psychologize  the  facts  of 
biology ;  but  I  do  not  wish,  of  course,  to  prejudice  the  argument  by  a  word 
ill-used  and  suggest  'circular  reaction"  as  an  alternative. 


Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association    265 

expect  that  the  organism  could  in  any  way  escape  this 
dependence?  Yet  we  have  already  found,  in  the  fact  of 
pleasure  and  pain  reactions,  that  the  organism  takes  active 
attitudes  toward  the  sources  of  stimulation  and  thus  in  a 
measure  turns  the  events  of  its  environment  to  better  account. 
But  this  is  only  the  start :  the  marvels  of  development  are 
not  yet  well  begun ! 

Is  the  occurrence  of  any  reaction,  we  may  ask,  possible 
in  the  absence  of  the  external  stimulus  which  is  suited  to 
start  it?  Evidently  it  is  not  possible,  unless  there  be  some 
way  whereby  the  energies  of  the  reaction  in  question  may 
be  started  by  something  equivalent  to  the  working  of  the 
original  external  stimulus. 

We  have  seen  how  it  is  that  the  organism  goes  out  to  find 
its  stimulus  by  a  kind  of  imitation;  we  now  find  the  still 
more  remarkable  fact  for  which  this  only  is  the  preparation 
—  but  the  necessary  preparation  —  the  fact  of  memory. 
Memory  is,  as  everybody  says,  on  the  bodily  side,  the  rein- 
statement in  the  nervous  centres  of  the  processes  concerned 
in  the  original  perception,  sensation,  etc.,  or  of  others  that 
stand  for  them.  These  processes,  of  course,  tend  always, 
when  started,  to  issue  in  movement,  just  the  same,  no  matter 
how  they  themselves  are  started.  So  the  function  of  the  rein- 
statement of  processes  in  the  act  of  memory  is,  in  respect  to 
the  tendency  to  action  which  these  processes  arouse,  essen- 
tially the  same  as  that  of  the  processes  of  perception,  sensa- 
tion, or  other  event  which  furnished  the  original  of  the 
memory. 

But  in  memory  the  object  or  thing  remembered  is  itself 
absent;  yet  inasmuch  as  its  proper  reaction  in  movement 
comes  about  just  the  same,  we  have  a  new  stage  in  what  is 
still  our  old  friend  the  'circular,'  the  'stimulus-retaining,'  re- 
action. It  gets  started  from  the  brain  centres  to  be  sure, 


266  Organic  Imitation 

but  it  aims,  just  the  same,  to  bring  about  the  consequences 
which  it  did  when  it  was  directly  started  by  the  sense-stimu- 
lation. It  aims,  that  is,  to  bring  the  organism  into  touch 
with  the  stimulation  itself  again  if  it  be  a  desirable  one,  or, 
in  contrary  cases,  to  get  the  organism  away  from  the  stimula- 
tion. 

This  is  accomplished  in  the  organism  by  an  arrangement 
whereby  a  group  of  processes,  corresponding  to  what  we 
call  in  consciousness  'copies  for  imitation,'  some  of  them 
external  as  things,  some  internal  as  memories,  conspire,  so 
to  speak,  to  'ring  up'  one  another.  When  an  external 
stimulus  starts  one  of  them,  that  starts  up  others  in  the 
centres,  and  all  the  reactions  which  wait  upon  these  several 
processes  tend  to  realize  themselves.  So,  many  reactions 
which,  but  for  this,  would  never  get  stimulated  except  when 
the  actual  material  stimulus  is  there,  are  started  by  and  with 
others  whose  stimuli  are  there.  And  with  the  multiplying  of 
these  secondary  or  remote  ways  of  stimulation,  the  more  and 
more  varied  and  complex  habits  of  the  organism  come  to  be 
less  dependent  upon  the  particular  external  events  of  the 
world,  and  more  capable  of  remote  stimulation  through  senses 
which  originally  did  not  constitute  their  stimulus,  but  which 
by  this  organic  'conspiracy,'  called  —  I  may  as  well  antici- 
pate —  association,  come  to  do  so ;  while  the  increasing 
variety  of  the  conspiring  elements  —  constantly  recruited 
from  the  new  experiences  of  the  world  and  all  represented 
by  certain  nervous  processes  —  make  up  a  large  and  ever 
larger  mass  of  connected  centres,  which  vibrate  in  delicate 
counterpoise  together. 

The  arrangement  thus  sketched,  therefore,  is  the  physical 
basis  of  memory.  A  memory  is  a  copy  for  imitation  taken 
over  from  the  world  into  consciousness.  Memory  is  a 
device  to  nullify  distance  in  space  and  time.  It  remedies 


Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association    267 

lack  of  immediate  connection  with  the  come-and-go  occur- 
rences of  the  world  and  makes  the  organism  to  a  degree  in- 
dependent of  them.  Every  act  I  set  myself  to  do  is  either 
to  imitate  something  which  I  find  now  before  me,  or  to  re- 
produce, by  my  own  action,  something  whose  elements  I 
remember  —  something  whose  copy  I  get  set  within  me  by 
a  'ring  up'  from  elements  which  are  events  or  objects  in  the 
world  now  before  me. 

This  neurological  theory  of  memory,  advanced  with  too 
great  brevity,  is  along  the  lines  already  announced  by  Tarde 
and  others.1  Tarde's  theory,  which  I  find  obscure,  is  im- 
proved in  quotation,  and  indorsed  by  Sighele.2  It  may  be 
analyzed  into  two  factors,  i.e.  (a)  the  securing  of  repetitions 
by  imitation,  a  speculative  idea  based  upon  the  mere  fact 
that  animals  and  man  do  consciously  imitate;  and  (6)  the 
theory  of  memory,  considered  as  a  means  of  perpetuating  and 
complicating  the  effects  of  repetition  in  mental  development. 
This  latter  factor  I  find  only  vaguely  and  inadequately  stated 
by  Tarde.  It  is  readily  seen  that  his  view,  also,  assumes  the 
fact  of  conscious  or  semi-conscious  imitation,  makes  of  it  an 
original  endowment  or  kind  of  social  instinct,  and  is,  in  so 
far,  open  to  the  objections  which  may  be  urged 3  against 
such  a  position  from  the  point  of  view  of  development ;  for 
one  of  the  great  problems  of  the  theory  of  development  is  to 
account  for  instincts  of  all  kinds.  And,  moreover,  of  all  in- 
stincts the  social  are  possibly  the  most  complex  and  the 
latest.  They  involve  a  great  measure  of  the  individual 
organic  and  mental  attainment  found  in  memory,  imagina- 
tion, emotion,  etc. 

1  Les  Lois  de  V Imitation,  Chap.  III. ;    published  earlier  in  an  article 
'Qu'est-ce  qu'une  Socie"teV  Revue  Philosophique,  XVIII.,  1884,  p.  489. 

2  La  joule  criminelle,  pp.  42  ff. 

8  Cf.  Bain,  Senses  and  Intellect,  3d  ed.,  pp.  413  ff.,  mentioned  again  below. 


268  Organic  Imitation 

The  theory  now  proposed,  on  the  other  hand,  aims  at 
supplying  this  lack.  It  gives  a  derivation  of  imitation  based 
upon  an  analysis  of  the  imitative  reaction  itself.  This 
analysis  —  the  outcome  of  which  we  have  expressed  by 
calling  imitation  a  'circular  reaction,'  i.e.  one  which  tends 
to  keep  up  its  own  stimulating  process  —  gives  us  a  means 
of  denning  imitation  and  fixing  the  limits  of  the  concept.1 
The  third  and  fundamental  factor,  therefore,  which  the 
development  stated  above,  compared  with  the  earlier  theories, 
endeavours  to  supply,  is  the  theory  of  the  rise  of  imitation 
itself  from  the  simple  vital  processes  of  an  organism  through 
the  occurrence,  among  'spontaneous  life  variations'  of  crea- 
tures whose  vital  discharges  are  movements  of  the  'circular' 
type,  which  tend  directly  to  secure  the  repetition  or  main- 
tenance of  certain  good  stimuli.  And,  in  like  manner,  the 
suppression  of  reactions  which  are  damaging  or  useless 
follows,  for  by  that  very  fact  they  lower  the  vitality  of  the 
organism  and  so  hinder  their  own  recurrence.  This  deriva- 
tion of  imitation  secured,  we  are  able  to  develop  independently 
the  two  principles  urged  by  Tarde  and  Sighele,  on  both  sides, 
the  bodily  and  the  mental. 

We  reach  now  a  new  stage  in  race  history.  As  habit  goes 
on  forming,  accommodation  enters  in  a  new  form.  New 
reactions  which  prove  to  be  beneficial,  have  themselves  to 
become  matters  of  habit,  have  to  be  accommodated  to  by 
the  organism  as  a  whole,  have  to  be  taken  up  into  the  net- 
work of  conspiring  processes  which  represent  the  sum  of 
adaptations  to  date,  being  stereotyped  in  the  race  by  natural 

1  Cf.  Tonnies'  remarks  on  Tarde's  book  in  Philos.  Monatshefte,  1893, 
p.  298,  showing  the  need  of  more  definition  in  this  whole  field.  The  rela- 
tion of  my  views  on  imitation  to  those  of  M.  Tarde  is  made  matter  of  ex- 
plicit remark  in  the  Preface  to  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  3d  ed. 


Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association    269 

selection.  Here  it  is  that  the  principle  of  association  largely 
gets  its  great  value  in  nervous  and  mental  development. 

We  have  found  reason  to  think  that  mere  repetition  with 
association  would  not  suffice  for  development,  and  that  the 
principle  of  'organic  imitation'  must  be  added,  for  the 
reason  that  association  alone  would  simply  render  habits 
more  compact.  This  is  true  also  in  higher  development 
after  the  process  of  memory  comes ;  yet  here  association  has 
much  wider  application.  For  example,  a  child  does  not 
learn  to  speak  by  merely  getting  his  accidental  vocal  muscu- 
lar sensations  associated  with  the  significant  sounds  which 
he  makes,  though  I  know  that  this  is  a  widespread  view. 
For  at  that  rate  of  learning  the  number  of  words  in  his 
vocabulary  would  be  less  than  the  number  of  days  in  his 
life.  On  the  contrary,  he  yields  to  his  tendency  to  imitate 
sounds,  and  by  strenuous  effort  succeeds,  thus  getting  a 
great  number  of  significant  sounds  and  their  necessary  muscu- 
lar sensations.  This,  now,  becomes  association's  opportunity 
to  show  the  manner  of  its  action  —  a  chance  it  could  not 
have  had  otherwise.  And  it  does. 

Nervous  association  does  two  things.  First,  it  does  here 
what  it  has  been  seen  to  do  in  the  lower  organisms :  it  binds 
sense  of  stimulus  and  sense  of  movement  together.  The 
child  who  has  learned  to  make  a  sound,  then  makes  it  by 
association  whenever  he  hears  it.  But  second,  association 
does  more,  —  and  here  comes  in  the  very  great  influence  of 
the  fact  which  we  have  been  describing  by  the  phrase  'cen- 
tral conspiracy,'  —  association  brings  different  reactions  to- 
gether as  wholes;  it  links  together  the  elements  of  copy  at 
the  centre,  so  that  a  stimulus  may  produce,  not  only  its  own 
associated  reaction,  but,  by  its  association  with  another 
stimulus,  or  with  the  memory  of  that  other,  it  may  suffice  to 
produce  the  reaction  associated  with  the  second  stimulus,  or 


270  Organic  Imitation 

a  third,  fourth,  etc.  This  we  have  already  seen  in  the  fact 
of  'substitution'  in  the  matter  of  emotional  attitudes.1 

The  play  of  this  form  of  association  and  its  importance 
appear  on  the  mental  side  in  the  detailed  facts  of  conscious 
association.  This  is  mentioned  below  and  traced  further. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  brain  is  a  great  mass  of  such  sensory 
and  motor  processes  bound  together  by  'association  fibres,' 
all  attesting  the  growth  of  the  organ,  as  a  whole,  by  the 
action  of  association  upon  simple  functions.  The  fact  that 
brains  differ  from  one  another  only  in  degree  of  associative 
complexity,  and  the  further  fact  that  all  complex  brain  func- 
tions arise  from  the  complication  of  simple  reactive  func- 
tions, —  these  facts  are  now  axioms  of  physiology.  There  are 
two  general  truths  involved,  however,  which  are  suggestive 
for  our  present  topic. 

The  actual  exercise  of  the  most  complex  voluntary  func- 
tion involved  in  thought  and  conduct  involves  the  motor 
apparatus  which  is  also  used  by  the  simple  reflex  processes.3 
This  has  further  mention  in  the  chapter  on  '  Volition.'  We 
are  able  to  see  now  more  clearly  the  reason  for  it.  The  new 
more  complex  functions  are  born  out  of  the  old  simple  ones 
by  this  principle  of  organic  association.  They  are  higher 
co-ordinations  in  which  the  lower  enter  as  necessary  ele- 
ments. The  apparatus  of  the  old  cannot  be  superseded ; 
that  would  take  away  the  basis  for  the  new.  All  develop- 
ment is  evolution.  When  an  object  approaches  my  eye,  the 
lid  flies  to.  But  I  use  the  same  muscle  when  I  will  to  wink 
my  eye.  In  the  one  case,  I  stimulate  the  motor  process  by 
a  percept  or  memory  process,  associated  with  the  motor  lid- 

1  Above,  Chap.  VIII.,  §  4. 

2  See  Chauveau  on  'The  Sensori-motor  Nerve  Circuit  of  Muscles'  in 
Brain,  1891,  pp.  145  ff.,  and  Exner  on  'Senso-mobilitat'  in  Pfliiger's  Archiv 
fiir  die  gesammte  Physiologic,  XLVIIL,  592  ff. 


Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association    271 

movement  process ;  in  the  other  case,  the  same  motor  process 
is  stimulated  by  an  outside  event. 

The  evident  fact  to  be  noticed,  then,  is  that  the  more 
fixed  of  the  two  sides  —  sensor  and  motor  —  of  the  neural 
apparatus,  is  the  motor  side.  It  represents  the  habits,  the 
organism's  own  repeated  responses  by  apparatus  which  the 
different  senses  and  the  higher  mental  processes  use  in  com- 
mon. It  also  represents  the  great  antithesis  of  ebb  and  flow 
in  the  vital  processes  into  the  terms  of  which  all  sorts  of 
stimulation  are  translated :  while  the  sensory  side  represents 
the  shifting,  varying  life  of  stimulation;  the  relativities,  the 
modifications,  the  reasons  for  accommodation,  in  short.  The 
sensory  centres  have  been  likened  by  James  to  a  funnel, 
which  pours  its  flood  down  into  the  motor  channel.  Stimu- 
lations can  be  accommodated  to  only  so  far  as  the  processes 
they  excite  can  be  drawn  off  successfully  in  the  motor  channels 
established  by  habit.  Motor-habit,  then,  is  the  measure  of 
nervous  and  mental  unity.  As  we  shall  see  below,1  the  sense 
of  it  affords  largely  the  permanence,  identity,  self -persistence 
of  the  whole  mental  system. 

A  second  fact  of  great  importance  arises  from  the  in- 
creased complexity  of  associations  in  the  brain.  We  have 
seen  the  elements  of  it  in  the  association  which  one  sensory 
process  may  form  with  a  certain  motor  process  through  its 
earlier  association  with  another  sensory  process  more  directly 
connected  with  the  same  motor  process.  The  oft-cited  in- 
stance of  the  burnt  child  dreading  the  fire  is  a  case  of  it. 
The  burn  is  at  first  associated  organically  with  the  with- 
drawing movement ;  but  the  sight  of  the  blaze  also  entered 
originally  into  the  complex  experience  of  the  fire.  So  the 
sight  of  the  blaze  now  comes  to  bring  about  the  withdrawing 
movements  directly,  although  at  first  it  was  only  the  burn 

1  Chap.  X.,  §  3,  and  Chap.  XI.,  §  i. 


272  Organic  Imitation 

and  its  pain  that  were  agents  capable  of  doing  it.  Or,  put 
in  terms  of  pleasure  and  advancing  movements:  the  child 
sees  —  tastes  —  grasps  an  apple.  The  next  time  he  sees  an 
apple,  he  grasps  at  it  before  he  gets  the  taste.  If  we  note 
well  that  the  first  order  is  imitative,  i.e.  taste,  then  grasp- 
ing to  secure  the  taste  again,  and  note  also  that  it  is  by 
simple  association,  merely,  that  the  real  stimulus,  taste,  dis- 
appears largely  from  the  series  —  we  are  at  once  able  to 
give  a  new  meaning  to  the  principle  of  association.  The 
original  imitative  type  seems  entirely  to  disappear  from  the 
act  as  soon  as  the  child  gets  the  second  order,  seeing  — 
grasping  —  tasting;  and  yet  without  imitation  the  reaction 
necessary  to  the  association  itself  would  not  have  been  learned. 
It  is  possible  to  say,  therefore,  as  our  former  chapters  would 
lead  us  to  expect,  that  each  new  accommodation  secured  by 
central  nervous  development  is  not  new  at  all  in  principle, 
but  rests  directly  upon  imitation  and  association.  Its  char- 
acteristic feature,  however,  is  its  complexity.  And  this  com- 
plexity is  of  such  a  kind  that  reactions  seem  to  lose  altogether 
the  stimulus-repeating  or  imitative  character  which  they  had 
to  have  at  first. 

On  the  nervous  side,  this  result  is  secured  by  the  forma- 
tion, between  different  brain  areas,  of  direct  connections, 
which  take  the  place  of  the  roundabout  connections  first 
painfully  learned.  Pathology  is  full  of  cases  which  illus- 
trate it.  Speech  is  learned  by  direct  imitation  through  the 
ear,  but  afterwards  gets  to  be  stimulated  through  the  eye; 
that  is,  a  direct  connection  is  formed  from  the  optical  verbal 
to  the  motor  speech  centre,  and  takes  the  place  of  the  course 
through  the  auditory  verbal  centre.  And  it  is  now  common 
doctrine,  as  I  have  said  above,  that  the  briefer,  more  auto- 
matic functions  may  represent,  by  neurological  short-cuts, 
a  long  series  of  earlier  processes. 


Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association     273 

This  is  the  secret,  also,  this  fact  of  associative  short-cuts,  of 
the  abbreviating  of  phylogenesis  by  ontogenesis,  —  already 
noted  above.1  It  may  be  well  to  repeat  the  point,  now  that 
we  have  had  so  much  to  do  with  neurology.  Once  let  such 
a  short-cut  get  so  well  established  that  it  represents  a  more 
powerful  organic  tendency  of  habit  than  the  longer  process 
which  in  its  genesis  it  represents;  or  once  let  the  short-cut 
break  in  upon  connections  formerly  used  by  the  long  — •  and 
this  result  it  becomes  the  business  of  heredity  or  natural 
selection  to  preserve.  The  child,  in  his  own  growth,  cannot 
develop  instincts  for  the  performance  of  activities  which  he 
is  also  to  learn  to  perform  voluntarily;  for  the  acquisition 
of  volition  involves  the  use  in  new  forms  of  the  very  elements 
which  would  be  held  fast  in  the  fixed  reflexes  of  instinct.  He 
is  accordingly  born  a  human  infant  without  developed  in- 
stincts, not  a  brute  with  them.  His  nervous  system  in  its 
embryonic  development  does  not  fully  carry  out  all  the  details 
of  its  ancestral  history,  but  abbreviates  them  by  a  short-cut 
direct  to  the  volitional  stage,  omitting  the  instinctive  stage 
almost  altogether.2  Darwin  notes  the  same  falling  away  of 
certain  simple  social  emotions  which  in  his  view  lie  at  the 
basis  of  the  ethical,  when  once  these  ethical  feelings  have 
become  well  established.3 

We  are  able,  therefore,  in  view  of  the  foregoing  expositions, 
to  make  the  following  general  statement:  the  action  of  the 

1  Chap.  I.,  §  4. 

2  Professor  Minot  suggests  that  "this  point  might  be  extended  generally 
to  the  effects  of  disuse  in  biology  —  i.e.  the  loss  of  characters."   Such  a  posi- 
tion strongly  favours  a  Darwinian  or  selective  view  of  the  origin  of  characters. 

3  Exp.  of  the  Emotions,  p.  69.     I  see  hardly  any  limit  to  the  application  of 
this  principle  in  the  hands  of  evolutionists.     Whatever  seems  native,  a  priori, 
may  be  held  to  be  an  outcome  whose  preparatory  stages  have  been  lost  by  the 
principle  of  abbreviation.     See  my  own  use  of  it,  below,  in  finding  the  genesis 
of  the  sense  of  identity  and  sufficient  reason  (Chap.  XI.,  §  i). 


274  Organic  Imitation 

cerebral  centres  concerned  in  memory  is  sufficiently  accounted 
for  as  a  development  from  the  simple  reactions  of  the  imitative 
or  'circular'  type.  In  these  higher  junctions  the  principle  of 
habit  as  applied  to  compounded  reactions,  fixed  by  selection, 
takes  on  the  broader  form  commonly  known  as  nervous  Asso- 
ciation^ 

And  yet  one  additional  remark.  Just  as  soon  as  the  copy 
for  imitation  becomes  a  matter  of  memory,  a  thing '  rung  up ' 
hi  the  nervous  centres  and  so  already  fully  there  hi  the  or- 
ganism, both  hi  its  sensory  presence  and  in  its  motor  worth, 
then  it  is  no  longer  a  thing  to  be  accommodated  to.  It  is  then 
a  thing  already  accommodated  to.  Its  influence  then  is  to  fix 
more  and  more  steadily  the  reaction  associated  with  it  at  first 
by  effortful  imitation,  so  that  its  present  imitation  —  its 
circular  process  —  is  now  an  agent  of  habit.  Notice  the  great 
utility  of  the  infant's  incessant  repetition  of  its  own  sounds, 
words,  movements,  etc.,  in  exercising  the  organs  and  strength- 
ening its  nascent  powers.  The  same  is  seen  in  the  scale  of 
race  progress  —  a  species  refining  and  fixing  what  it  has 
already  acquired  —  in  the  fixing  of  instincts  through  the  in- 
stinctive imitation  of  some  animals  by  others,  by  their  young, 
etc.,1  made  much  of  by  Wallace. 

As  the  processes  in  consciousness  fall  away,  the  reaction 
becomes  more  reflex.  So  by  the  extraordinary  cunning  of 
the  organism,  the  very  means  of  its  new  adaptations,  that  by 
which  its  old  habits  are  modified  and  broken  up,  its  imitative 
reinstatement  of  its  experiences  even  at  the  high  level  of 
memory,  this  becomes  itself  a  thing  of  habit,  just  as  it  does 
at  the  lower  level  of  simple  motor  adjustment ;  sinks  down  to 

1  Observations  bearing  on  this  latter  aspect  of  the  case,  with  quotations 
from  Wallace  and  Romanes,  are  cited  by  Morgan,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  454  ff. ;  such 
as  the  constant  dependence  of  certain  birds'  nest-building  instinct  upon  the 
sight  of  their  home  nests,  etc. 


Physical  Basis  of  Memory  and  Association     275 

the  lower  levels  of  brain  co-ordination ;  and  is  found  actually 
in  the  child  or  animal  as  an  impulse  to  imitate  itself.  But  in 
the  child  the  impulse  to  imitate  is  a  matter  of  consciousness. 
The  mental  copy,  imagined,  remembered,  is  set  up  and  aimed 
at ;  imitation  is  no  longer  the  organism's  weapon ;  it  is  now 
the  sword  of  mind,  as  the  following  chapters  on  'Conscious 
Imitation'  aim  to  make  clear.1 

1  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  says,  in  criticising  my  usage  (Habit  and  Instinct, 
p.  1 68),  that  the  word '  imitation'  should  be  confined  to  "the  repetition  by  one 
individual  of  the  behaviour  of  another  individual."  Yet  what  is  the  differ- 
ence between  my  actions  when  I  do  what  I  see  you  do  and  when  I  do  what  I 
think  or  imagine  you,  me,  or  some  one  else  doing  ?  In  defining  the  reaction  as 
such,  it  is  impossible  to  maintain  the  social  criterion.  The  term  'self- 
imitation,'  used  in  the  text,  and  also  independently  suggested  by  Royce,  is 
sufficient  to  mark  the  absence  of  the  social  reference  in  a  particular  case. 


PART   III 

PSYCHOLOGICAL  GENESIS 
CHAPTER  X 

CONSCIOUS  IMITATION  (BEGUN);   THE  ORIGIN  OF  MEMORY 
AND  IMAGINATION 

§  i.    Certain  General  Facts  and  Explanations 

WE  are  now  clear  of  neurological  considerations  in  the 
main,  and  may  trace  the  development  of  consciousness.  The 
place  of  consciousness  in  phylogenetic  progress  has  already 
come  up  for  notice,  and  we  have  been  able  to  find  in  conscious- 
ness a  higher  sphere  of  organic  accommodation.  That  is, 
it  seemed  necessary  to  assume  the  analogue  of  the  nervous 
basis  of  pleasure  and  pain  very  early  in  the  life  series,  in  order 
to  get  any  complexity  of  development  at  all.  Assuming, 
moreover,  the  truth  of  our  theory  of  development  as  now 
sketched,  which  bases  it,  from  the  start,  on  the  two  factors, 
contractility,  and  the  pleasure  and  pain  analogue  found  in 
central  'excess,'  we  ought  now  to  find  the  further  develop- 
ment of  consciousness  an  illustration  of  the  same  processes. 

The  rest  of  our  discussions,  therefore,  may  turn  upon  fur- 
ther analyses  of  conscious  states,  whose  reason  for  being  is 
evident  only  when  we  connect  them  with  the  function  of  con- 
sciousness in  evolution  as  a  whole.  And  as  it  is  the  essence 
of  our  doctrine  of  accommodation  that  the  imitative  reac- 
tion is  the  type  of  all  organic  accommodations,  our  further 
276 


General  Facts  and  Explanations          277 

interesting  task  becomes  that  of  tracing  and  explaining  the 
presence  of  imitation  in  the  development  of  consciousness. 

We  may  preface  our  detailed  treatment  of  this  topic  with 
two  statements  already  put  in  evidence,  both  of  which  are  the 
clear  outcome  of  current  psychological  opinion.  I  quote 
them  from  my  earlier  work,  in  which  they  appear  as  the 
natural  result  of  a  statement  of  nervous  structure  and  func- 
tion in  its  relation  to  consciousness,  written  for  purposes  of 
exposition  only. 

"All  the  phenomena  of  consolidation  or  'downward 
growth,'  on  the  one  hand,  illustrate  what  is  known  as  the  law 
of  Habit;  all  the  phenomena  of  specialization,  or  'upward 
growth,'  illustrate  the  law  of  Accommodation. 

"As  for  Habit:  Physiologically,  habit  means  readiness  for 
function,  produced  by  previous  exercise  of  the  function.  Ana- 
tomically, it  means  the  arrangement  of  elements  more  suitably 
for  a  function,  in  consequence  of  former  modifications  of 
arrangement  through  that  function.  Psychologically,  it  means 
loss  of  oversight,  diffusion  of  attention,  subsiding  consciousness. 

"As  for  Accommodation:  Physiologically  and  anatomi- 
cally, it  means  the  breaking  up  of  a  habit,  the  widening  of 
the  organic  for  the  reception  or  accommodation  of  new  con- 
ditions. Psychologically,  it  means  reviving  consciousness, 
concentration  of  attention,  voluntary  control  —  the  mental 
state  which  has  its  mcfst  general  expression  in  what  we  know 
as  Interest.  In  habit  and  interest  we  find  the  psychological 
poles  corresponding  to  the  lowest  and  the  highest  in  the  activ- 
ities of  the  nervous  system."  The  application  of  these  con- 
clusions, especially  those  italicized,  will  be  plain  as  we  go  on. 

The  books  on  psychology  which  have  had  the  courage  to  say 
anything  about  imitation  —  and  they  are  few  —  have  gen- 
erally, by  what  they  said,  only  tended  to  justify  the  conser- 


278  Conscious  Imitation 

vatism  of  those  which  had  not  the  courage.  It  has  been  a 
topic  of  extraordinary  neglect  and  confusion.1  One  of  the 
latest  authors 2  makes  certain  statements  about  imitation 
which  may  be  considered  typical  of  the  uncertainty  which 
seems  to  shield  itself  behind  eclecticism. 

He  says  (p.  218) :  "  Since  it  only  begins  to  appear  about  the 
fourth  month,  when  simple  voluntary  action  directed  towards 
an  end  is  also  first  recognizable,  it  is  possible  that  imitation  is 
acquired";  then  (219),  "As  a  rapid  reaction  of  a  sensori- 
motor  form,  it  has  the  look  of  a  mechanical  process  ...  in 
many  cases  there  seems  to  be  no  conscious  purpose.  .  .  . 
There  is  much  to  favour  the  view  that  it  is  purely  ideo- 
motor  and  so  sub- volitional" ;  then  (219,  note),  "It  is  pointed 
out  by  Gurney  that  imitation  plays  a  conspicuous  part  in  the 
hypnotic  state";  and  again  (219-220),  "Imitation  follows 
on  the  persistence  of  motor-ideas  having  a  pleasurable  in- 
terest. .  . .  The  child  does  not  imitate  all  the  actions  it  sees,  but 
only  certain  ones  which  specially  impress  it. ...  Hence  in  most, 
at  least,  of  a  child's  imitation  there  is  a  rudiment  of  desire. 
For  the  rest,  the  abundant  imitative  activity  of  early  life  illus- 
trates the  strength  of  the  playful  impulse,  of  the  disposition  to 
indulge  in  motor  activity  for  the  sake  of  its  intrinsic  pleasur- 
ableness  "  (italics  his).  Again  (109),  he  makes  imitative  sym- 
pathy instinctive. 

And  yet  if  we  examine  these  separate  statements,  we  find 
that  they  rest  generally  upon  fact,  and  it  becomes  evident  that 
the  need  in  this  topic  is  a  theory  of  the  reaction  in  question 
which  will  cover  facts  drawn  from  an  area  wider  than  that 
which  individual  or  analytic  psychology  is  usually  called  upon 
to  cover.  It  may  therefore  be  taken  as  the  legitimate  task 
of  such  a  theory  as  mine,  which  not  only  recognizes  imitation 

1  To  this  Professor  Bain's  work  was  an  early  and  admirable  exception. 
The  literature  of  imitation  is  now  full  and  valuable  (1906). 
1  Sully,  The  Human  Mind. 


General  Facts  and  Explanations          279 

but  endeavours  also  to  explain  it,  to  set  in  order  the  facts  cited 
by  psychologists. 

FACT  i.  The  late  rise  of  conscious  imitation  in  the  child: 
sixth  or  seventh  month.  This  fact  may  be  accounted  for  on 
the  very  evident  ground  of  the  distinction  of  congenital  func- 
tion from  the  new  accommodations  of  the  individual  child. 
The  child's  early  months  are  taken  up  with  its  vegetative 
functions.  The  machinery  of  heredity  is  working  itself  out  in 
a  new  individual.  Further,  accidental  imitations  struck  by 
him  do  not  give  pleasure  until  the  senses  are  sharpened  to 
discern  them,  and  until  the  attention  is  capable  of  its  opera- 
tions of  comparison,  co-ordination,  etc. ;  before  this  there 
is  no  element  of  pleasure  in  the  happy  successes  of  imitations, 
to  lend  its  influence  for  the  continuance  of  them.  As  soon  as 
these  conditions  get  fulfilled,  however,  we  find  not  only  that 
the  child  begins  to  show  germinal  imitations,  such  as  the 
monotonous  repetition  of  its  own  vocal  performances  (ma- 
ma-ma-), but  also  that  its  nervous  connections  give  it  an  in- 
stinctive tendency  to  biological  subconscious  reactions,  dis- 
tinctly of  the  imitative  type,  such  as  the  walking  alternation 
of  the  legs.  In  the  main,  therefore,  there  is  instinctive  ten- 
dency to  functions  of  the  imitative  type  and  to  some  direct 
organic  imitations ;  but  those  clear  conscious  imitations  which 
represent  new  accommodations  and  acquirements  are  not  as 
such  instinctive,  but  come  later  as  individual  acquirements.1 

FACT  2.  Imitation  is  often  a  simple  sensori-motor  reac- 
tion without  conscious  purpose,  i.e.  it  is  involuntary.  This 
is  so  evident  that  we  have  based  an  important  distinction  on 
it  in  an  earlier  chapter  —  that  between  'simple'  imitation, 

1  The  term  'instinctive*  used  here  is  in  the  sense  of  impulse  or  disposition 
rather  than  of  definite  instinct  in  the  narrow  sense.  Cf .  the  discussions  of 
Groos  in  The  Play  of  Man,  together  with  the  editor's  preface  to  the  English 
translation. 


280  Conscious  Imitation 

considered  as  'suggestion,'  and  'persistent'  imitation,  which 
turns  out  to  be  the  first  typical  exhibition  of  volition.  In 
hypnotic  conditions,  imitation  is  clearly  ideo-motor  sugges- 
tion. This  means  that,  after  all,  imitation  considered  as  a 
type  of  reaction,  is  organic  and  inherited.  It  has  its  place 
among  race  habits.  Infants  show  remarkable  differences,  for 
example,  in  the  readiness  and  facility  with  which  they  learn 
to  speak.  This  does  not  arise  from  difference  in  practice,  for 
practice  never  overcomes  the  difference;  but  it  is  due  to 
differences  in  the  instinctive  tendencies  of  the  infants  to  a 
reaction  which  is,  par  excellence,  imitative  in  its  type  and 
method  of  development.1 

On  this  basis  it  is  possible  to  admit  the  truth  of  the  first 
fact  cited,  that  many  imitations  are  late  acquisitions  in  the 
child's  first  year,  and  are,  therefore,  phenomena  of  accommo- 
dation, and  acquired  things  involving  volition  or  purpose; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  admit  reflex  imitations  and  explain 
them. 

Further,  our  theory  requires,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  just  this 
state  of  things.  Volition  would  be  impossible  without  this 
great  class  of  quite  involuntary  sensori-motor  and  ideo- 
motor,  as  well  as  purely  biological  reactions,  which  fall  under 
the  imitative  type,  and  which  represent  instinctive  inherited 
tendencies  to  movement.  In  more  undeveloped  conscious- 
ness, also,  we  find  that  the  purely  suggestive  influence  of  a 
'copy  for  imitation'  may  be  so  strong,  as  is  remarked  further 
below,  that  reactions  follow  despite  their  painful  character : 
a  fact  which  would  be  impossible  on  the  theory  that  all  vol- 
untary action  is  acquired  under  lead  of  the  pleasure-pain 
association,  without  such  a  basis  of  native  tendency.  The 
law  of  habit,  which  exhibits  itself  in  the  congenital  motor 

1  The  same  is  true  of  handwriting;  cf.  Romanes,  Mental  Evolution  in 
Animals,  p.  194. 


General  Facts  and  Explanations  281 

tendencies  spoken  of  above,  is  in  these  cases  too  strong  for 
the  law  of  accommodation  through  pleasure  and  pain,  and 
works  itself  out  in  conduct  in  opposition  to  warnings  of  tem- 
porary damage  to  the  organism. 

Again,  not  only  is  this  true  of  imitation  itself  considered  as 
a  phenomenon.  It  is  true  of  all  motor  acquisitions,  i.e. 
that  they  may  become  instinctive  in  some  cases,  and  yet  must 
be  acquired  in  others.1  I  have  already  pointed  this  out  in 
the  case  of  many  instincts  and  of  emotional  expression.  The 
chick  is  born  with  full-fledged  space  instincts ;  man  acquires 
'intuitions'  of  space  relations,  and  in  such  a  finished  way  that 
Kant  thinks  them  native.  Beasts  in  many  cases  seem  to 
inherit  their  vocal  cries ;  man  learns  his  speech,  indeed,  but 
learns  it  so  well  that  it  gets  to  be  reflex,  as  is  seen  in  certain 
aboulic  patients.  And  in  many  cases  the  original  process  of 
learning  is  seen  to  be  identical  with  imitation  from  the  fact 
that  many  animals  do  not  learn  their  characteristic  cries,  as 
birds  their  songs,  if  they  do  not  hear  adults  of  their  kind  make 
such  sounds,  although  they  apparently  never  consciously  imi- 
tate their  adults  at  all.  The  instinct  of  imitation  is  so  bound 
up  in  all  these  race  acquisitions  or  habits  that  its  exercise  is 
often  necessary  to  bring  them  out. 

FACT  3.  Children  are  more  imitative  than  animals,  with 
one  or  two  striking  exceptions,  such  as  monkeys,  the  mocking- 
bird, etc.  This  is  due  simply  to  the  fact  that  the  child's  life, 
as  heredity  has  laid  it  out  for  him,  is  to  be  largely  one  of 
acquisitions  or  new  adjustments,  while  the  animal's  is  to  be 
one  of  repetitions  of  race  habits  or  old  adjustments.  In  the 
words  of  Preyer,2  "the  more  kinds  of  co-ordinated  move- 

1  This  is  considered,  under  the  head  of  '  duplicated  functions,'  in  the 
discussion  of   organic  selection  in  Development  and  Evolution,  pp.  72  ff., 
and  28  ff. 

2  Physiologic  des  Embryos,  p.  545. 


282  Conscious  Imitation 

ment  an  animal  brings  into  the  world,  the  fewer  is  he  able  to 
learn  afterwards."  The  child  is  par  excellence  the  animal 
that  learns;  and  if  imitation  is  the  way  to  learn,  he  has 
'  chosen  the  better  part '  in  being  more  imitative  than  the  rest. 
He  is  born  with  a  more  'broken  up'  or  mobile  nervous  or- 
ganization, because  his  immediate  ancestors  have  had  full 
consciousness  and  volition,  whose  function  is  to  secure  new 
adaptations  by  choice,  memory,  etc.,  in  opposition  to  the  old 
reflex  adaptations  of  animal  instinct.  The  long  period  of  his 
infancy  has  come  with  this  mobility  and  relative  helplessness, 
to  give  him  time  to  acquire  these  higher  conscious  adaptations. 

Animal  imitativeness  is  generally  understated,  however.1 
The  most  social  animals,  including  man,  are  the  most  imi- 
tative, as  we  should  expect  from  what  we  know  about  the 
imitation  factor  in  the  social  consciousness,  and  this  would 
seem  also  to  give  us  an  explanation  of  the  strength  of  the  imi- 
tative tendency  in  certain  animals  which  show  it  strongly 
marked. 

Another  reason  for  the  difference  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  we  are  usually  looking  for  a  particular  kind  of  imitation 
in  the  cases  of  animals  —  the  imitation  of  acts  which  they  do 
not  normally  perform.  The  animals  have  so  much  instinc- 
tive endowment  that  most  of  their  performances  are  taken  as 
a  matter  of  nature,  and  only  those  clear  cases  of  imitation  are 
noted  which  are  novel  and  rare.  Yet  it  is  probable  that  many 
of  the  most  'innate'  powers  of  the  animals  are  brought  out, 
perfected,  and  constantly  kept  efficient,  by  imitation  within 
the  group  or  species.  In  these  cases  the  presence  of  imitation 
can  only  be  detected  by  the  artificial  separation  of  mate  from 
mate,  young  from  young,  etc. ;  but  interesting  cases  of  crippled 
performances  in  circumstances  of  such  separation  are  coming 

1  Cf.  the  remarkable  performances  of  dogs,  cats,  birds,  etc.,  in  the  way  of 
imitation,  given  by  Romanes,  Evol.  of  Mind  in  Animals,  Chap.  XIV. 


General  Facts  and  Explanations  283 

to  light,  such  as  the  abortive  crowing  of  young  cocks,  the 
failure  in  barking  of  young  dogs,  the  loss  of  the  form  of  nest- 
building  in  young  birds,  when  the  example  of  their  elders 
is  ruled  out  in  these  instances  respectively.1 

FACT  4.  The  tendency  to  imitate  may  come  into  direct 
conflict  with  the  prudential  teachings  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
and  yet  may  be  acted  upon.  A  child  may  do,  and  keep  on 
doing,  imitations  which  cause  him  pain. 

This  may  be  readily  explained  when  we  take  the  facts 
simply  in  hand,  and  rid  ourselves  of  current  doctrines  of 
ethics  and  theories  of  conduct.  If  imitation  is  anything  like 
the  fundamental  fact  which  the  foregoing  account  takes  it  to 
be,  —  the  means  of  selection  among  varied  external  stimu- 
lations, —  it  becomes  evident  in  what  ways  pleasure  and  pain 
may  be  related  to  such  reactions.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  now 
seen  to  be  the  index  of  a  change  brought  about  by  a  stimulus 
or  by  a  reaction  itself  considered  as  a  new  stimulus.  The 
repetition  of  this  stimulus  is  desirable,  and  this  is  secured  by 
further  imitation.  The  pleasure  is  enhanced  by  the  repeti- 
tion, which  thus  aims  at  securing  the  continued  presence  of 
the  'copy';  that  is  to  say,  the  pleasure  accruing  is  some- 
thing additional  to  the  copy  or  'object'  which  the  original 
reaction  aims  at. 

The  observation  of  young  children  directly  and  plainly 
confirms  the  truth  of  this  position.  The  child  invariably  re- 
acts at  first  upon  objects,  presentations,  things  present  to  it. 
So  in  some  circumstances,  suggestion,  serving  to  urge  him 
on  to  new  accommodations,  or  simply  calling  out  an  old 

1  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  gives  many  instructive  examples  of  the  influ- 
ence of  these  accommodations  on  evolution,  as  illustrating  the  theory  of 
Organic  Selection  (cf.  Development  and  Evolution,  Chaps.  V.-VII.).  Since 
the  above  was  written,  it  has  been  pretty  well  established  that  animal  imita- 
tions are  largely  restricted  to  functions  natural  to  the  species  in  each  case. 


284  Conscious  Imitation 

habit  into  exercise,  works  in  spite  of  the  pleasure  or  pain  to 
which  it  may  give  rise.  I  have  illustrated  this  1  with  concrete 
cases  from  infant  life.  Romanes  finds  it  in  the  animal 
world.2  Pathology  is  full  of  striking  illustration  of  it. 

Further,  the  transition  from  this  na'ive  suggestibility  to  the 
reflective  consciousness  in  which  pleasures  and  pains  become 
considerations  or  ends,  is  marked  in  the  life  history  of  the 
infant.  He  learns  to  dally  with  his  bottle,  to  postpone  his 
enjoyment,  to  subordinate  a  present  to  a  distant  pleasure,  by 
a  gradual  process  of  reflective  self-control.  He  gradually 
grows  out  of  the  quasi-neutrality  of  habit  to  be  a  reflective 
egotist. 

In  adult  life  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  we  usually  do 
things  because  we  like  to  do  them  and  stop  doing  them  when 
they  hurt,  but  even  then  it  is  not  always  so.  Just  as  the 
little  child  sometimes  acts  from  mere  suggestion,  at  the  same 
time  moved  to  tears  by  the  anticipation  of  pain  to  result 
from  it ;  so  to  the  man  a  copy  may  be  presented  so  strongly 
for  imitation,  it  may  be  so  moving  by  its  simple  suggestive- 
ness,  that  he  acts  upon  it  even  though  it  have  a  hedonic 
colouring  of  pain.  The  principle  of  accommodation  requires 
that  it  be  so,  for  otherwise  there  could  be  no  development, 
except  within  the  very  narrow  range  afforded  by  accidental 
discharges.  No  new  adjustment  or  adaptation  could  be 
effected  without  risk  of  pain  and  damage.  If  the  child  never 
reacted  in  any  way  but  in  pleasurable  ways  guaranteed  al- 
ready by  its  inheritance  or  by  its  experience,  how  could  it 
grow?  So  if  we  sought  only  what  we  have  already  grown  to 
like,  how  could  new  appetites  be  acquired?  The  ethical 

1  Chap.  VI.,  §  3,  on  'Deliberative  Suggestion.' 

*  "There  is  abundant  evidence  of  one  individual  imitating  the  habits 
of  another  individual,  whether  the  action  imitated  be  beneficial  or  useless" 
(Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  p.  220)- 


General  Facts  and  Explanations  285 

truth  that  pain  is  a  schoolmaster,  that  we  cannot  dispense 
with  its  discipline  and  also  grow  —  this  truth  holds  as  well 
in  a  measure  for  the  vital  organism  and  its  reactions. 

But  the  question  then  remains:  How  is  this  possible,  if 
the  criterion  of  what  is  advantageous  is  pleasure,  and  if  the 
organism  has  developed  all  the  way  through  on  that  principle  ? 
How  can  imitation,  dictated  itself  by  pleasure  and  pain,  come 
to  conflict  with  the  indications  of  pleasure  and  pain  ? 

The  answer  to  this  seeming  difficulty  is  evident  when  we 
remember  one  of  the  points  already  made.  The  accommo- 
dation-reaction —  the  imitation  dictated  by  pleasure  and 
pain  —  is  so  regular  in  its  kind,  giving  the  circular  process, 
and  involves  organic  elements  so  much  the  same,  that  it  has 
itself  become  a  matter  of  habit.  The  tendency  to  imitate 
has  thus  become  a  congenital  thing,  given  by  endowment  in 
the  motor  organism.  The  idea  of  a  movement  has  become, 
as  psychologists  so  often  tell  us,  itself  a  tendency  to  perform 
that  movement;  yea,  the  very  beginning  of  the  movement. 
The  child  is  therefore  actuated  by  all  the  impetus  of  race 
history  to  imitate,  to  use  his  own  motor  apparatus  upon  every 
hint  which  he  gets  of  a  movement,  and  this  tendency  takes, 
of  course,  no  account  of  exceptions.  The  pain,  therefore,  in 
which  a  certain  new  reaction  results  is,  at  first,  only  a  partial 
check  upon  the  reaction.  It  is,  of  course,  in  so  far  a  new 
accommodation,  and  works  by  association,  as  far  as  it  can 
do  so,  to  inhibit  the  movement;  but  its  influence  is  'uphill.' 
It  cannot  once  for  all  undo  the  old  congenital  tendency.  And 
for  a  time  the  latter  wins  the  day. 

When  reflection  begins,  however,  and  with  it  volition,  then 
the  case  is  altered.  Volition  is  not  possible  until  just  the 
breaking  up,  modifying,  snubbing,  of  inherited  habit,  which 
it  is  the  office  of  new  pains  and  pleasures  to  bring  about,  is, 
to  a  degree,  already  accomplished.  And  volition  is  no  more 


286  Conscious  Imitation 

than  just  the  ratification  of  this  break-up,  and  the  further 
accommodation  to  the  conditions  which  have  brought  about 
the  'break-up.'  Man  then  becomes  an  agent.  He  reflects 
upon  both  the  old  and  the  new,  and  his  choice  represents 
the  best  adjustment  into  which  all  the  elements  and  tendencies 
within  him  may  fall  for  future  reaction  or  conduct.  But  then 
the  fight  with  the  dictates  of  pleasure  and  pain  may  become 
only  more  open,  in  the  degree  in  which,  in  his  deliberation, 
he  may  discern  the  permanent  adaptations  represented  by 
self-denial,  social  co-operation,  etc.,  as  opposed  to  the  tempo- 
rary ones  of  pleasure  and  pain. 

§  2.   The  Origin  o]  Memory  and  Association  of  Ideas 

The  neurological  function  already  described  as  '  the  phys- 
ical basis  of  memory,' 1  and  the  manner  of  its  rise,  will  at 
once  suggest  the  psychological  doctrine  as  well.  We  have 
found  the  organism  developing  a  system  of  centres  and  nerve- 
connections  for  the  purpose  of  being  relieved  of  its  depend- 
ence upon  direct  sense-stimulation.  By  this  arrangement 
the  processes  corresponding  to  the  memory  of  these  sense 
experiences  are  aroused  from  within,  from  other  centres,  or 
from  without  indirectly,  by  associated  processes,  in  lieu  of 
the  action  of  the  real  original  object.  Such  a  process  thus 
started  gives  to  consciousness  the  picture  or  image  of  the 
object,  which  we  call  a  '  memory.' 

If,  now,  to  keep  within  consciousness,  the  original  sensa- 
tion-content, —  the  stimulus  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
reaction  to  confirm  by  repeating,  or  to  banish  by  failing  to 
repeat,  thus  illustrating  imitation,  —  if  this  be  considered 
as  respects  the  reaction  which  it  arouses,  then  we  may  have 

1  Above,  Chap.  IX.,  §  3. 


Origin  of  Memory  and  Association  of  Ideas    287 

the  same  function  in  kind  ascribed  to  the  memory  copy  as 
to  it.  But  the  reaction  will  then  have  another  office;  its 
province  will  be  to  enable  the  organism  to  anticipate  ex- 
periences, the  consequences  of  which  it  has  once  suffered  or 
enjoyed.  It  thus  performs  its  life-preserving  reaction  before 
the  real  stimulus  comes,  and  so  secures  benefit,  or  avoids 
damage.  The  child  remembers  the  flame  and  the  pain,  and 
•withdraws  before  the  fire  touches  him.  He  remembers  the 
apple,  and  the  pleasure,  and  secures  the  fruit  for  himself  by 
reaching. 

Further,  we  have  seen  how,  on  the  neurological  side,  the 
processes  ring  one  another  up,  so  that  one  may  release  the 
reaction  which  originally  belonged  by  right  of  imitation  only 
to  another.  The  question  on  the  side  of  consciousness,  as 
to  how  the  different  'copies'  get  to  ring  one  another  up,  in 
such  a  system,  is  the  question  of  association. 

They  can  at  first  act  together,  it  is  plain,  only  as  far  as 
the  original  external  things  are  together.  For  example,  you 
speak  a  word ;  I  at  once  write  it.  I  can  do  this  because  I 
heard  the  word  sound  when  I  saw  the  written  word  and 
learned  to  trace  it.  To-morrow,  by  reason  of  a  brain  lesion, 
I  am  unable  to  write  the  word  when  I  hear  you  speak  it,  but 
I  can  still  copy  the  word  when  you  set  it  before  me.  The 
lesion  has  simply  deprived  me  of  the  use  of  the  internal 
visual  copy  which  I  imitated  in  writing,  by  cutting  the 
writing-reaction  apparatus  off  from  its  connection  with  the 
auditory  seat  from  which  this  visual  copy  was  accustomed 
to  be  'rung  up.'  But  the  simpler  imitation  of  the  external 
visual  copy  remains  possible.  A  step  further :  I  see  a  man, 
and  at  once  write  his  name.  Here  the  visual  image  of  the 
man  rings  up  the  auditory  image  of  the  name-word,  this 
rings  up  the  visual  copy-image  of  the  written  word,  and  this 
I  imitate  by  writing.  But  all  of  these  images  were  once  real 


288  Conscious  Imitation 

external  things  to  me  and  existed  together,  in  my  learning, 
by  various  twos  and  threes.  Yet  if  any  one  had  asked  me 
why  I  wrote  the  man's  name,  I  should  have  said :  '  Because 
I  remember  it.'  Each  one  of  these  images  is  itself  a  'copy 
for  imitation,'  when  needed  for  its  own  appropriate  reaction, 
and  only  by  such  associations  does  its  typical  character  be- 
come obscured.  A  young  child,  on  seeing  the  man,  would 
say  'Man,'  i.e.  would  imitate  the  auditory  copy  which  the 
sight  of  the  man  rang  up.  And  a  certain  child  of  mine 
would  probably  hasten  to  ask  for  a  pencil  in  order  to  draw 
the  man,  thus  imitating  the  schematic  outline  man  fixed  in 
her  memory  by  earlier  efforts  to  imitate  the  shape  of  the  real 
thing.  In  all  these  cases  the  reaction  follows  either  directly 
upon  an  external  stimulus  or  upon  a  memory  image  which 
represents  another  external  thing  existing  at  some  time  along- 
side the  first. 

In  other  words,  association  by  contiguity  is  simply  the 
progress  from  external  togetherness  into  internal  together- 
ness, from  fact  to  memory.  Your  spoken  word  brings  up 
my  written  word  copy.  Why?  Because  sound  and  written 
copy  existed  together  when  I  learned  to  write,  and  so  on  with 
all  the  instances. 

But  suppose  a  perfectly  new  external  copy  rings  up  an- 
other copy  which  is  only  internal :  why  is  this  ?  Thus  a 
new  man  seen  brings  up  an  old  name  written.  Why?  Evi- 
dently because  there  are  some  other  elements  of  copy  either 
external  or  internal  which  have  been  together  with  each; 
this  is  association  by  resemblance  or  contrast.  'Man  seen' 
and  'name  heard'  were  present  together  when  I  made  the 
old  acquaintance,  and  afterwards  'name  heard'  and  'name 
written'  were  associated  by  contiguity.  So  when  I  hear  the 
same  name,  when  in  conversation  with  a  new  face,  I  think 
of  the  written  name.  The  sound  name,  therefore,  has  been 


Origin  of  Memory  and  Association  of  Ideas    289 

common  to  both  associations,  and  by  it  the  written  name 
arises  when  I  see  the  new  acquaintance. 

I  have  used  this  last  example,  rather  than  the  usual  ones 
of  the  text-books  drawn  from  direct  resemblance  (a  photo- 
graph suggesting  a  man  1),  because  it  is  evident  that  such 
association  by  resemblance  is  only  a  special  and  very  open 
case  of  what  is  elsewhere  called  the  principle  of  'lapsed  links.' 
In  this  case,  the  auditory  sound  image  is  just  as  truly  a  link 
between  the  new  acquaintance's  face  and  the  written  name 
of  the  old  one,  or  between  my  images  of  the  two  faces,  one 
in  memory  and  one  in  perception,  as  actual  similarity  of 
feature  would  be.  In  such  ordinary  feature-resemblance  both 
copies  are  in  the  same  sense  —  the  two  faces  are  both  seen. 
But  similarity,  so  called,  is  really  a  much  wider  thing.  An- 
other centre  —  the  auditory,  in  the  case  supposed  —  may 
come  between,  as  a  link. 

Then  this  link  lapses.  I  tend  to  behave  toward  the  new 
man  as  I  would  toward  the  old ;  even  speaking  the  same 
name  to  him  is  behaviour,  of  course.  The  new  copy  comes 
to  usurp,  so  far  as  it  may,  the  reaction  belonging  to  the  old, 
leaving  out  the  link  of  association  altogether. 

Take  another  case :  a  musician  plays  by  reading  printed 
notes,  and  forgets  that  in  learning  the  meaning  of  the  notes 
he  imitated  the  movements  and  sounds  which  his  instructor 
made ;  for  the  intermediate  copies  have  so  fallen  away  that 
his  performance  seems  to  offer  no  surface  imitation  at  all, 
and  pathological  cases  show  that  even  the  intervening  brain 
processes  become  unnecessary,  a  '  short-cut '  being  established 
between  sight  and  movement.  His  hearing  copy-system  per- 
sists to  the  end  only  to  guide  or  control  his  muscular  reactions. 
But  a  musician  of  the  visual  type  may  go  farther.  He  may 

1  See  my  Handbook,  Senses  and  Intellect,  Chap.  XI. 
u 


290  Conscious  Imitation 

play  from  memory  of  the  printed  notes ;  that  is,  he  may  play 
from  a  transformed  visual  copy  of  notes  which  themselves 
are  but  shorthand,  or  substitute,  expressions  of  earlier  sound 
and  muscular  copies ;  and  finally  the  name  alone  of  a  familiar 
selection  may  be  sufficient  to  start  a  performance  guided  only 
by  a  subconscious  muscular  copy  series.  So  also  in  the  case 
of  the  patient  who  can  move  a  limb  only  when  he  sees  it; 
we  have  to  suppose  that  his  properly  imitative  action  on  the 
basis  of  movement  memories  is  now  performed  through  the 
substitution  of  visual  images  for  these. 

Reflection  convinces  us  that  we  have  now  reached  a 
principle  —  when  due  weight  is  also  given  to  the  explana- 
tions earlier  made  on  the  neurological  side  *  —  of  wide-reach- 
ing application  in  mental  development.  We  see  how  it  is 
possible  for  reactions  which  were  originally  simple  imita- 
tive suggestions  to  lose  all  appearance  of  their  true  origin. 
Copy-links  at  first  distinctly  present  as  external  things,  and 
afterwards  present  with  almost  equal  distinctness  as  internal 
memories,  may  become  quite  lost  in  the  rapid  progress  of 
consciousness.  New  connections  get  established  in  the  net- 
work of  association,  and  motor  discharges  get  stimulated 
thus  which  were  possible  at  first  only  by  imitation  and  owed 
their  formation  to  it. 

If  this  principle  should  be  proved  to  be  of  universal  appli- 
cation, we  would  then  be  able  to  say  that  every  intelligent 
action  is  stimulated  by  imitative  copies  whose  presence  the 
action  in  question  tends  to  maintain,  suppress,  or  modify? 

A  further  confirmation  of  the  fact  is  seen  in  the  process 
of  learning  to  name  objects.  The  child  gets  the  required 
word  by  direct  imitation  of  the  sound  heard  by  him.  The 
application  of  the  word  to  the  object  keeps  his  interest  and 

1  Above,  Chap.  IX.,  §  3.  »  See  Appendix  C,  I. 


Origin  of  Memory  and  Association  of  Ideas    29 1 

stimulates  his  effort,  but  it  is  no  part  of  his  learning.  But 
after  he  has  learned  to  use  the  term  easily,  he  speaks  it  directly 
at  the  object.  He  no  longer  needs  to  keep  the  sound  copy 
before  him,  and  it  lapses  so  completely  that  if  we  had  not 
been  with  him  when  he  learned,  we  should  never  suspect  that 
the  association  between  name  and  thing  was  of  imitative 
origin.  He  can  name  the  thing  only  because  he  has  imitated 
a  sound,  and  then  by  association  the  visual  image  of  the 
thing  has  usurped  the  reaction  created  by  this  imitation. 
Pathological  cases  show  that  this  concealment  of  imitative 
origin  may  go  so  far  that  patients  may  be  able  to  name 
objects  seen  when  they  can  no  longer  imitate  the  same 
sounds  when  they  hear  them.1  It  is  as  if  the  son  of  a  washer- 
woman refuse  to  recognize  his  mother  when  he  takes  the  social 
position  of  his  wife,  even  though  the  wife  is  spending  the 
money  which  the  humble  mother  has  earned. 

The  very  great  importance  of  this  principle,  apart  from 
the  question  of  fact,  is  seen  in  its  genetic  applications.  It 
exhibits  the  higher  mental  functions  as  a  great  stride  in  ac- 
commodation. Memory  and  association  do  exactly  the 
same  thing  for  the  organism,  later,  that  perception,  sensa- 
tion, contractility,  do  earlier.  Association  enables  us  to 
react  to  facts  which  are  distant  from  present  facts  but  allied 
to  them.  Memory  enables  us  to  react  to  the  facts  of  the 
future  as  if  they  were  present,  thus  conserving  the  lessons 
of  the  past.  Perception  enables  us  to  set  present  facts  in  their 
proper  setting,  and  thus  to  react  upon  them  with  full  reference 
to  their  significance.  Sensation  enables  us  to  react  upon  facts 
according  to  their  immediate  worth  to  the  organism.  Con- 
tractility, exhibiting  itself  in  '  organic  imitation,'  is  the  original 
form  of  the  adaptive  reaction  which  works  through  the  whole 
precess  of  development. 

1  See  Bastian,  Brain  as  Organ  of  Mind,  p.  623. 


292  Conscious  Imitation 

And  with  these  higher  reaches  of  accommodation,  we 
now  see,  the  method  of  it  remains  the  same.  Pleasure 
and  pain,  mixed  up  with  the  reactions  of  emotion,  lead  to 
the  'excess'  discharge  which  is  consolidated  in  the  atten- 
tion, and  selection  by  attention  gets  its  highest  fruition  in 
the  explicit  selective  function  of  consciousness,  volition.1 

The  actual  dynamogenic  parallel  between  simple  sensa- 
tion, on  one  hand,  and  memory,  on  the  other,  appears  in 
the  different  classes  of  'suggestions,'  known  as  sensori-motor 
and  ideo-motor,  illustrated  in  detail  in  an  earlier  place.  The 
facts  of  suggestion  should  be  constantly  borne  in  mind,  since 
they  show  the  transitions  in  behaviour  between  reflexes  and 
volitions,  and  bridge  what  has  often  been  considered  a  chasm 
of  discontinuity. 

§  3.    Assimilation,  Recognition 

There  are  several  aspects  of  presentation  and  representation 
which  seem  more  reasonable  when  brought  into  connection 
with  our  present  topic.  The  principle  of  assimilation,  made 
much  of  in  recent  discussions,  clearly  illustrates  not  only  that 
a  copy-image  may  be  so  strong  and  habitual  in  consciousness 
as  to  assimilate  new  experiences  to  its  form  and  colour,  but 
also  that  this  assimilation  is  the  very  mode  and  method  of  the 
mind's  digestion  of  what  it  feeds  upon.  Consciousness  con- 
stantly tends  to  neglect  the  unfit,  the  mal  apropos,  the  incon- 
gruous, and  to  show  itself  receptive  to  that  which  in  any  way 
conforms  to  its  present  stock.  A  child  after  learning  to 
draw  a  full  face  —  circle  with  spots  for  the  two  eyes,  nose, 
and  mouth,  and  projections  on  the  sides  for  ears  —  will 
persist,  when  copying  a  face  in  profile,  in  drawing  its  circle, 
with  two  eyes,  and  two  ears,  and  fail  to  see  its  error,  al- 

1  See  Chaps.  XIII.  and  XIV.  for  the  discussion  of  the  Genesis  of  Volition 
and  Attention. 


Assimilation,  Recognition  293 

though  only  one  ear  is  visible  and  no  eyes.1  My  child  H., 
having  been  told  that  her  shadow  was  herself,  called  all 
shadows  'ittle  Henen'  (little  Helen).  The  external  pattern 
is  assimilated  to  the  memory  copy,  or  to  the  word  or  other 
symbol  which  comes  to  stand  for  it.  The  child  has  a  motor 
reaction  for  imitating  the  latter ;  why  should  not  that  answer 
for  the  other  as  well  ?  As  everybody  admits,  in  one  way  or 
another,  such  assimilation  is  at  the  bottom  of  recognition,  and 
of  illusions  which  are  but  mistaken  recognitions. 

Let  us  look  at  each  of  these  facts  —  assimilation  and 
recognition  —  more  closely,  from  the  genetic  point  of  view. 

In  what  has  been  said  of  the  principle  of  association,  we 
find  ground  for  the  reduction  of  its  particular  forms  to  the  ,/ 
one  law  of  assimilation.  This  matter  has  been  ably  dis- 
cussed by  Wundt.2  In  assimilation  —  and  in  the  'apper- 
ception' of  the  Herbartians  —  we  have  the  general  state- 
ment of  all  the  forms,  nets,  modes  of  grouping,  which  old 
elements  of  mental  content  bring  to  impose  upon  the  new. 
In  the  light  of  their  motor  effects,  we  are  able  to  construe  all 
these  elements  of  content  under  the  general  principle  of  habit, 
and  say  that  the  assimilation  of  any  one  element  to  another, 
or  the  assimilation  of  any  two  or  more  such  elements  to  a  "-' 
third,  is  due  to  the  unifying  of  their  motor  discharges  in  the 
single  larger  discharge  which  stands  for  the  apperceived  result. 
The  old  discharge  may  itself  be  modified  —  it  cannot  remain 
exactly  as  it  was  when  it  stood  for  a  less  complex  content.  So 
this  larger  discharge  represents  the  habit  of  the  organism  in 
so  far  as  both  the  earlier  tendencies  to  discharge  belonging  to 
these  elements  of  content  are  represented  in  it;  but  it  also 
represents  accommodation  —  i.e.  if  the  assimilation,  appercep- 

1  Passy,  Revue  Philos.,  1891,  II.,  p.  614. 

J  Philos.  Studien,  VII.,  Heft  3,  pp.  345  ff-  Wundt,  however,  confines  the 
term '  assimilation '  to  "  associations  between  the  elements  of  like  compounds  " 
(Outlines  of  Psychol.,  p.  228). 


294  Conscious  Imitation 

tion,  synthesis,  is  smoothly  accomplished  —  since  it  stands 
for  a  richer  objective  content.  Presentations  are  associated 
by  contiguity  because  they  unite  in  a  single  motor  discharge ; 
by  similarity,  because  both  of  them,  through  their  association 
with  a  third,  have  come  to  unite  in  a  common  discharge. 
The  energy  of  the  new  presentation  process  finds  itself  drawn 
off  in  the  channels  of  the  discharge  of  the  old  one  which  it 
resembles ;  the  motor  associations,  therefore,  and  with  them 
all  the  organic  and  revived  mental  elements  stirred  up  by 
them,  come  to  identify  or  unite  the  new  content  with  the  old. 
Among  these  revised  elements  the  attention  strains  are  of  the 
first  importance ;  they  constitute  largely  the  sense  of  activity 
in  mental  synthesis  or  apperception  everywhere. 

It  is  commonly  held  that  assimilation  stands  midway 
between  absolute  identity  of  presentations,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  such  difference  of  presentations,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
is  found  in  the  relative  independence  of  associated  ideas,  such 
as,  for  example,  the  association  'stable  —  horse.'  But  this 
is  not  the  true  view  of  assimilation,  for  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  absolute  identity  of  presentation,  or  of  mental  content  of 
any  kind.  Assimilation  is  always  present.  It  is  the  necessary 
basis  of  the  earliest  association.  For  association  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  on  the  organic  side  and  at  the  start,  only  another  state- 
ment for  the  consolidating  of  the  different  reactions  which  arise 
when  the  stimulations  are  multiple  or  not  simple.  These 
reactions  are  reduced  to  orderly  habitual  discharges  —  this  is 
association  by  assimilation,  more  or  less  adequate  to  give  the 
sense  of  synthesis,  or  unity,  or  identity.  Association  has, 
accordingly,  a  motor  foundation  from  the  first.  The  ele- 
ments hold  together  in  memory  because  they  are  used  to- 
gether in  action.  And  as  the  action  becomes  one,  but  yet 
complex,  so  the  mental  content  tends  to  become  one,  but  yet 
complex  also. 


Assimilation,  Recognition  295 

This  becomes  more  evident  when  we  call  to  mind  that 
the  'objects'  of  the  external  world  are  very  complex  men- 
tal constructions.  They  are  for  the  most  part  made  by 
association.  Objects  have  some  very  general  aspects  in  com- 
mon, such  as  colour,  resistance,  odour,  etc.  But  these  bare 
qualities,  taken  alone,  might  go  to  constitute  one  object  about 
as  well  as  another;  and  really  would  constitute  none.  What 
kind  of  an  object  such  or  such  a  bare  stimulus  shall  turn  out 
to  be  —  this  is  largely  a  matter  of  association  and  suggestion. 
Hence  if  the  mind  has  to  construct  anyhow,  in  each  case,  and 
to  depend  largely  upon  memory  of  earlier  instances  for  its 
material,  then  it  falls  back  at  once  upon  those  habitual  re- 
actions by  which  groups  of  associated  elements  are  reinstated 
together  and  as  one  content.  These  old  groups  thus  usurp  the 
new  elements  by  assimilation,  if  it  be  within  the  range  of 
organic  possibility. 

Put  generally,  therefore,  we  may  say  that  assimilation  is 
due  to  the  tendency  of  a  new  sensory  process  to  be  drawn 
off  into  preformed  motor  reactions ;  these  preformed  reactions 
in  their  turn  tending  to  reinstate,  by  the  principle  of  imitation, 
the  old  stimulations  or  memories  which  led  to  their  prefor- 
mation,  with  all  the  associations  of  these  memories.  These 
memories,  therefore,  tend  to  take  the  place  of,  or  stand  for, 
or  include  the  new  stimulations  which  are  being  thus  as- 
similated. 

All  perception  is  accordingly  a  case  of  assimilation.  The 
motor  contribution  to  each  presented  object  is  just  begin- 
ning to  be  recognized  in  cases  of  disease  called  by  the  gen- 
eral term  '  apraxia,'  i.e.  loss  of  the  sense  of  the  use,  function, 
utility,  of  objects.  A  knife  is  no  longer  recognized  by  these 
patients  as  a  knife,  because  the  patient  does  not  know  how 
to  use  it,  or  what  its  purpose  is.  The  complex  system  of 
elements  is  still  there  to  the  eye,  all  together :  the  knife  is  a 


296  Conscious  Imitation 

thing  that  looks,  feels,  etc.,  so  and  so.  This  is  accomplished 
by  the  simple  contiguous  association  of  these  elements,  which 
have  become  hardened  into  the  '  thing.'  But  the  central  link 
by  which  the  object  is  made  complete,  by  which,  that  is,  these 
different  elements  were  originally  reproduced  together  by 
being  imitated  together  in  a  single  act,  —  this  has  fallen  away. 
So  the  apperception,  the  synthesis  which  made  the  whole 
complex  content  a  thing  for  recognition  and  for  use,  this  is 
gone. 

The  great  importance  of  this  fact  of  assimilation  becomes 
more  evident  also  when  we  take  note  more  in  detail  of  the 
nature  of  the  motor  processes  by  which  it  takes  place.  When 
we  say  that  a  new  element  is  assimilated  to  old  contents  by 
exciting  the  motor  associates,  and  with  them  all  the  other 
entrained  associates  of  the  old,  we  lay  ourselves  open  to  the 
task  of  showing  what  the  motor  processes  are  which  are  thus 
established  by  habit  in  any  particular  case. 

We  have  shown  that  in  a  developed  organism  the  'excess' 
discharge  which  secures  accommodation,  by  reinstating  a 
stimulus,  takes  on  two  great  forms  by  the  law  of  habit.  First, 
we  have  the  gross  general  activities  of  the  muscles  and  glands, 
reflexes,  reactions  of  emotion,  etc.,  already  established ;  and 
with  these,  second,  the  constant  modifications  of  them  made 
in  getting  new  acquisitions  of  skill,  etc.  These  represent 
respectively  biological  habit  and  accommodation.  But  then 
we  find  also  the  more  special  kind  of  reaction  upon  mental 
content  found  in  attention.  This  has  still  to  be  described  as  a 
more  or  less  consolidated  motor  reaction  fixed  by  natural 
selection.  We  shall  also  see,  in  considering  the  attention, 
how  it  is  that  every  mental  content  tends  to  call  out  the  at- 
tention, and  how,  in  turn,  the  attention  modifies  the  content 
which  it  calls  out.  There  is,  therefore,  just  so  far  as  this 
reaction  of  attention  upon  content  is  a  constant  generalized 


Assimilation,  Recognition  297 

thing,  a  general  demand  for  the  assimilation  of  all  contents  in 
certain  great  nets  or  categories  representing  forms  of  action ; 
and,  in  particular,  these  mental  categories  are  due  to  felt 
movements  of  the  attention.  This  may  be  deferred  for  later 
discussion.  But  this  is  not  all  of  the  attention.  We  find  that 
there  is  a  balance  of  attention  process — reflex  motor  influence, 
muscular  strains  here  and  there — peculiar  to  each  great  qual- 
ity of  content,  as  being  from  eye,  or  ear,  etc.,  and  inside  of  this, 
again,  a  balance  peculiar  to  each  particular  individual  content 
experienced.  We  not  only  have  a  common  attention,  in- 
volving the  brow-muscles,  etc.,  but  various  special  attentions, 
such  as  visual,  auditory,  etc.,  and  further,  different  successive 
attentions  for  each  experience  of  the  same  quality,  i.e.  let  us 
say  three  successive  repetitions  of  the  same  sight.  If  A  be  the 
gross  movements  of  attention,  a,  a',  a",  a'"  may  stand  for  the 
peculiar  attentions  to  sight,  sound,  etc.,  and  a,  a',  a",  a!"  for 
the  successive  acts  of  the  attention  given  under  one  of  the 
latter,  say  under  a. 

This  means  that  the  sense  of  assimilation  in  each  suc- 
cessive experience  of  the  same  objective  content  varies  with 
the  different  motor  shadings  of  attention,  just  as  it  also  varies 
for  the  different  sense  contents  or  qualities  by  reason  of  the 
different  motor  strains,  etc.,  involved  in  accommodating  by 
the  different  senses. 

Now  let  us  see  what  the  different  cases  are  which  will 
arise  in  successive  presentation  of  the  same  external  object. 
Let  p  be  a  new  object,  a  peach.  A  +a-\-a,  then,  by  what  pre- 
cedes, stands  for  attention  to  it;  in  which  A  gives  the  sen- 
sations of  gross  contraction,  a  gives  the  sensations  of  special- 
sense  contractions,  such  as  rolling  of  the  eyes,  etc.,  and  «  gives 
the  sensations  of  contraction  peculiar  to  this  particular  object 
only,  —  say  the  visual  exploration  of  its  figure.  Now  all  this 
works  changes  in  the  content  p ;  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  law 


298  Conscious  Imitation 

of  assimilation,  p  gets  a  lot  of  associates  attached  to  it  by 
which  it  is  brought  into  harmony  or  connection  with  earlier  p's. 
It  is  put  into  the  category  P,  the  Peach. 

Now  suppose  that  instead  of  being  an  absolutely  new  p, 
this  p  has  been  seen  once  before  and  so  has  become  p'. 
Then  we  have  again  the  formula  for  attention,  A+a  +  a', 
where  «'  differs  from  the  former  a.  What  is  this  difference  ? 
In  consciousness  I  submit  the  difference  is  just  this,  that 
*l  we  recognize  p'.  Analyzed  out  as  it  has  now  been,  we  are 
able  to  see  what  this  peculiar  sense  of  recognition  rests  on. 
/•*  For  of  differs  from  a  in  two  respects :  first,  in  the  greater 
ease  with  which  the  movements  of  the  eye,  etc.,  for  which  a 
stands,  are  made  in  tracing  out  the  figure  of  p'  (or  whatever 
other  contractions  constitute  one  attention  different  from 
another  inside  the  same  sense-quality  —  what  we  may  call 
the  'motor  associates'  of  />'),  and,  second,  in  the  presence  of 
the  images  belonging  to  the  earlier  experience  now  brought 
I  up  in  regular  association.  As  to  the  first  of  these  elements,  it 
is  the  so-called  '  subjective  aspect '  of  recognition  to  be  men- 
tioned below.  As  to  the  latter  element,  it  is  evident  that  all 
the  old  images  will  be  associated  directly  with  p'.  But  among 
them  will  now  be  the  image  of  memory  left  by  the  earlier 
experience  of  p.  With  this  the  new  p'  is  assimilated,  to  such 
a  degree  that  the  two  are  not  held  apart  at  all,  but  the  result  is 
one  object  under  the  category  P,  with  a  group  of  associated 
elements.  We  say,  then,  that  p'  is  recognized. 

Recognition,  therefore,  generally  involves  elements  of 
content  brought  together  by  the  process  of  assimilation,  and 
so  rests  upon  attention  considered  as  a  phenomenon  of  motor 
habit,  that  is,  upon  the  more  habitual  ingredients  in  the  at- 
tention symbolized  by  the  A+  a  part  of  the  whole  attention 
formula.  The  objective  presented  elements  are  of  course 
most  evident  and  important.  Their  presence  is  in  so  far 


Assimilation,  Recognition  299 

only  the  familiar  fact  of  association,  which  seems  easy  to 
understand  because  it  is  so  familiar.  But  association  is 
itself  a  case  of  looser  and  less  effective  assimilation.  Every 
two  elements  whatever,  connected  in  consciousness,  are  so 
only  because  they  have  motor  effects  in  common.  In  association 
they  have  less  in  common.  In  recognition  they  have  so  much 
more  in  common  that  they  are  presented  as  one,  and  the  other 
elements  of  content  associated  with  each  of  them  in  similar 
ways  through  common  motor  interests,  cluster  around  the 
final  outcome  as  the  evident  signs  of  the  sameness  of  the  new 
and  the  old.  This  is  the  fact  of  recognition  by  Neben- 
•uorstellungen  signalized  by  Wundt,  under  which  falls  Leh- 
mann's  Benennungsassociation.  It  is  what  may  be  called 
recognition  by  an  objective  coefficient  (Hoffding's  Bekann- 
theitsqualitdt),  or  in  current  phrase,  'relative  recognition.' 

I  have  before  gathered  up  this  side  of  recognition,  based 
both  upon  mental  analysis  and  objective  experiment,  in  a 
formula  which  holds  that  the  sense  of  familiarity  with  an 
object  is  due  to  the  reinstatement  of  the  apperceptive  or 
relational  process  of  the  earlier  presentation.1  According 
to  this  formula,  taken  alone,  single  unrelated  homogeneous 
images  such  as  bell-stroke,  pure  colour,  etc.,  would  not  be 
recognized,  single  complex  images  such  as  human  faces  would 
be  recognized  somewhat  in  the  degree  in  which  the  com- 
plexity had  impressed  itself  in  the  first  perception,  and  clear 
recognition  would  arise  only  when  the  relations  attentively 
discerned  were  clearly  brought  out  in  the  reproduced  state. 
A  further  result  would  be  that  images,  when  reproduced, 
would  largely  depend  upon  and  reinforce  each  other  in  pro- 
ducing the  feeling  of  familiarity. 

I  once  had  an  opportunity  to  test  a  little  child  six  months 

1  Handbook  of  Psychology,  Senses  and  Intellect,  2d  ed.,  pp.  176-178, 
where  the  experiment  given  in  the  next  paragraph  is  also  mentioned. 


300  Conscious  Imitation 

and  a  half  old,  with  these  points  in  view,  and  the  result  was 
quite  instructive.  Her  nurse,  who  had  been  with  her  con- 
tinuously for  five  months,  was  absent  for  a  period  of  three 
weeks,  and  on  her  return  was  instructed  first  to  appear  to  the 
child  simply  in  her  usual  dress,  but  to  remain  silent ;  then  to 
withdraw  from  sight,  but  to  speak  as  she  had  been  accus- 
tomed to;  and  finally  to  appear  and  sing  a  nursery  rhyme 
which  by  special  care  the  little  girl  had  not  been  allowed  to 
hear  during  the  nurse's  absence.  The  first  result  was,  that 
the  child  gazed  in  a  questioning  way  upon  the  face,  but  showed 
no  positive  sign  of  a  recognition ;  yet  the  absence  of  positive 
fear  and  antipathy  shown  at  first  toward  the  substitute  nurse 
indicated  that  the  visual  image  was  not  entirely  strange. 
Second,  the  tones  of  the  nurse's  voice  were  not  at  all  recog- 
nized, as  far  as  passive  indications  even  of  familiarity  were 
concerned,  —  a  result  we  would  expect  from  the  greater  purity 
and  simplicity  of  the  auditory  images.  The  third  experiment 
was  attended  by  complete  and  demonstrative  recognition. 
The  visual  face  and  auditory  rhyme  images  must  have  re- 
inforced one  another,  giving  again  the  old  established  com- 
plex apperception  of  the  nurse. 

This  case  also  shows,  as  far  as  any  individual  case  can, 
that  images  from  different  senses  vary  greatly  in  intensity 
and  in  motor  effect,  especially  in  calling  out  influence  upon 
the  attention,  in  early  child-life,  that  they  are  not  well  differen- 
tiated from  one  another,  and  that  even  at  the  very  early  age 
of  six  months  special  memories  are  becoming  sufficiently 
permanent  to  fix  general  attitudes  and  habits  of  action  in  the 
child. 

Observations  are  largely  lacking  as  to  what  elements  in  the 
particular  experiences  of  early  childhood  are  most  influential 
in  recognition.  Close  observations  of  the  periods  when 
children  recognize  pictures  of  familiar  objects  would  throw 


Assimilation,  Recognition  301 

some  light  upon  the  point.  E.  recognized  pictures  of  a  clock 
and  a  cat  early  in  her  twelfth  month,  and  called  them  'tf-tT 
(tick- tick)  and  'ps-ps'  (puss-puss).1 

But  it  is  clear  that  the  other  element  in  the  attention-com- 
plex is  also  present.  There  is  a  change  in  the  a  factor  itself 
with  successive  appearances  of  the  same  p  content.  This 
is  not  itself  presented  as  part  of  the  content,  for  it  only  appears 
in  the  relative  ease,  facility,  of  attention  itself.  It  seems  to 
attach  to  the  subject,  to  the  agent,  to  the  ego  who  attends, 
not  to  the  object  or  content.2  We  have  in  the  recognition  of 
an  object  not  only  the  identification  of  it  as  objectively  the 
same,  but  also  a  feeling  of  'warmth,'  ownership,  self-reference. 
We  do  not  recognize  a  thing  simply  for  itself;  we  recognize 
it  for  ourselves.  It  has  become  in  a  sense  ours  by  having  been 
present  to  us  before.  This  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
just  this  motor  element  it  is  that  carries  along  with  it  the 
habitual  attention  strains,  and  these  attention  strains  are  in 
large  part  the  stable,  'identical'  element  in  the  sense  of  self. 
So  self  becomes  implicated  in  all  recognition  just  to  the  ex- 
tent in  which  the  attention  is  easily  stimulated. 

Now,  although  we  have  found  the  objective  aspect  of  recog- 
nition in  the  represented  complexity  of  content  just  spoken 
of,  —  the  apperceptive  or  associative  meaning  of  the  thing,  — 
so  it  still  remained  to  find  the  more  uniform  element  of  sub- 
jective reference  common,  in  a  measure,  to  different  recog- 

1  See  also  the  case  given  in  Chap.  XI.,  §  3,  beginning. 

2  Ward  (Mind,  July,  1893,  p.  353)  has  pointed  out  the  analogy  between  the 
feeling  of  '  facility '  which  we  have  when  we  perform  a  movement  a  second  or 
third  time,  and  the  feeling  of  familiarity  with  an  object.     In  my  view,  they 
are  exactly  the  same  thing,  except  that  in  the  former  case  the  subjective,  i.e. 
motor,  sense  is  nearly  or  quite  the  whole  of  the  feeling.     In  object  recognition 
the  objective  content  is  still  objective,  but  in  the  sense  of  motor  facility  the 
process  of  voluntary  attention  is  identified  directly  with  the  movement,  and 
finds  in  it  its  own  appropriate  outlet.     The  reader  should  also  consult  Ward's 
second  article  (Mind,  October,  1894). 


302  Conscious  Imitation 

nitions.  This  I  find  in  the  varying  readiness  or  ease  of 
attention  in  the  reinstatement  of  the  content  by  assimilation 
to  its  old  image  and  escort;  that  is,  in  the  motor  sensations 
of  adjustment,  which  indicate  in  a  series  the  varying  degrees 
of  strain  or  effort  of  the  attention. 

The  motor  associates  of  each  sensory  intensity  are,  there- 
fore, looked  at  broadly,  the  A  +a+a  factors  in  attention,  and 
each  such  reaction  of  the  attention,  when  taken  in  a  particular 
case,  has  also  in  it  a  certain  degree  of  readiness  or  ease  of  the 
a  factor.  This  has  more  proof  in  later  chapters  which  deal 
with  'Attention '  (Chap.  XV.) and  the ' Mechanism  of  Revival' 
(Chap.  XIV.).  When  a  presentation  comes  a  second  time 
into  consciousness,  it  is  adjusted  to  more  easily  because  its 
apperception  in  attention  proceeds  upon  a  basis  of  ready 
formed  association  of  both  these  kinds.  The  relative  ease 
of  adjustment  is  felt  as  the  subjective  aspect  of  recognition, 
and  the  consequent  assimilation  going  on  in  the  content  itself 
is  the  objective  aspect. 

Cases  are  now  well  known  and  discussed  of  so-called 
'absolute'  recognition,  in  which,  i.e.,  there  are  no  evident 
presented  associations  to  mediate  the  recognition.  The 
vital  question  is  raised :  How  do  such  recognitions  proceed  ? 
The  two  clear  cases  known  are  the  recognition  of  simple 
tones,  and  that  of  simple  colours.  In  both  these  cases,  as 
is  now  evident,  the  recognition  is  due  to  the  variable  factor 
which  is  described  above  —  the  relative  ease  of  attention  in 
adjusting  itself  to  such  a  tone  or  colour  a  second  time. 

§  4.  Phylogenetic  Value  of  Memory  and  Recognition 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  memory  is  a  function  of  extreme 
value  in  race  development.  Creatures  which  have  in  them 
the  faculty  of  anticipating  experiences,  both  pleasurable  and 


Its  Phylogenetic   Value  303 

painful,  by  the  recall  of  memory  pictures  in  something  of  the 
original  setting,  and  which  can,  in  consequence,  anticipate 
the  actual  experiences  to  secure  or  avoid  them  by  an  adapted 
reaction,  are  most  fit  for  natural  selection.  Of  course  they 
survive.  This  has  always  been  seen  by  those  writers  who  have 
found  in  memory  a  product  of  the  organic  accommodation 
of  the  creature  to  its  environment.  But  a  further  word  is 
necessary  to  point  out  the  proper  value  for  selection  of  the 
added  fact  of  recognition.  For  a  creature  might  well  repro- 
duce its  experiences  as  memory  pictures  and  react  upon  them 
well,  and  still  not  recognize  them,  just  as  pathology  shows 
is  the  case  in  certain  anaesthetic  hysterics.  These  patients 
respond  in  writing  to  questions  which  they  do  not  understand, 
or  describe  in  writing  persons  whom  they  do  not  recognize. 
The  whole  group  of  facts  of  'physiological'  or  organic  sug- 
gestions described  in  the  earlier  pages  *  show  the  kind  of 
'organic  memory'  which  enables  the  organism  to  act  upon  an 
experience  as  if  it  recognized  it,  when  the  actual  recognition 
does  not  take  place  in  consciousness.  What  is  absent  in  these 
cases  is,  as  we  now  know,  the  finer  motor,  synthetic,  adjust- 
ments of  the  attention  which  by  their  variations  constitute 
recognition. 

The  adaptations  of  most  of  the  organisms  below  mam- 
malian life,  and  some  mammals,  possibly,  take  place,  no 
doubt,  by  such  'organic  memory.'  They  have  consciousness 
and  also  memory  in  the  sense  of  'vestiges'  of  past  experi- 
ence; but  they  do  not  recognize  these  images  with  that 
peculiarly  'warm'  sense  of  ownership  which  we  have  when 
we  greet  the  familiar.  The  attention  has  not  grown  to  be 
the  medium  of  a  sense  of  self,  nor  has  its  development  gone 
far  enough  to  give  differentiated  reactions  to  many  contents. 
They  have  what  may  be  called  first  stage  associations  with 

1  Above,  Chap.  VI.,  5  a. 


304  Conscious  Imitation 

what  they  remember,  i.e.  associations  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
and  of  direct  adjusted  movement. 

The  additional  fact  of  recognition,  therefore,  must  have  a 
farther  value  than  that  of  simple  memory.  And  it  has,  as 
may  be  readily  pointed  out. 

By  the  recognition  of  an  object  a  creature  gets  full  possession 
of  all  the  benefits  both  of  immediate  and  of  remote  association, 
i.e.  second  stage  association,  let  us  say.  Recognition  follows 
to  reinforce  or  inhibit  the  reaction  of  simple  memory,  for  it  is 
constituted  by  the  set-back  wave  of  motor  associates  already 
described  as  necessary  for  the  assimilation  of  the  new  to  the 
old.  It  means,  therefore,  that  the  creature  that  recognizes 
takes  a  certain  attitude,  a  motor  state  of  contraction,  expan- 
sion, etc.,  a  condition  of  readiness  for  the  protective  or  defen- 
sive action  for  which  the  motor  habits  of  the  organism  have 
grown  to  provide.  But  these  may  be  different  from  the  reac- 
tions dictated  by  simple  memory.  Recognition  is  a  sense  of 
meaning  as  opposed  to  that  of  bare  appearance,  and  its  reac- 
tion is  often  the  violent  checking  even  of  the  impulses  due  to 
mere  organic  sensibility,  or  to  its  revival.  Creatures  which 
consciously  recognize,  therefore,  have  an  evident  shield  from 
the  ills  of  the  world  and  a  mortgage  upon  its  benefits.  The 
dog  which  sees  the  whip  only  for  the  first  time  gets  the  flog- 
ging; but  the  next  time  he  sees  the  whip,  he  recognizes  it 
with  the  immediate  impulse  to  startled  attention,  fear,  and 
flight.  The  motor  elements  which  underlie  are,  on  the  theory 
now  developed,  what,  in  his  consciousness,  is,  in  part,  the 
sense  of  recognition.  I  need  not  add  that  the  escape  of  this 
dog  from  his  cruel  master  is  the  survival  of  the  creature  that 
is  fit  to  survive. 

Phylogenetically,  the  difference  in  value  between  memory 
and  recognition  is  one  of  degree,  just  as  the  motor  adjustments 
and  the  escort  of  associates  of  all  kinds  represented  in  the 


Its  Phylogenetic  Value  305 

two  cases  differ  only  in  degree  of  co-ordination  and  com- 
plexity. Memory  of  the  organic  type,  without  recognition, 
is  present  when  there  is  a  first-degree  association  between 
two  sense  areas,  or  between  a  sense  and  a  movement  area. 
The  reaction  represents  a  first-degree  accommodation.  But 
in  recognition  we  have  the  motor  organization  represented 
by  attention  and  complex  central  development  in  the  cortex. 
Its  reactions  therefore  represent  all  the  accommodations  of 
skill  and  art,  and  all  the  adjustments  of  will  to  the  demands 
of  the  life  of  conduct. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CONSCIOUS    IMITATION    (CONTINUED);     THE    ORIGIN    OF 
THOUGHT  AND  EMOTION 

§  i.  Conception  and  Thought 

PASSING  on  to  the  sphere  of  conception  and  thought,  we 
find  at  once  an  opening  for  the  law  of  imitation.  The  prin- 
ciple of  Identity  which  represents  the  mental  demand  for 
consistency  of  experience,  and  the  mental  tendency,  already 
remarked,  to  the  assimilation  of  new  material  to  old  schemes, 
is  seen  genetically  in  the  simple  fact  that  repetitions  are 
pleasurable  to  the  infant,  and  to  us  all,  because  of  the  law 
of  habit  in  our  reactions.  Just  in  so  far  as  a  new  experience 
repeats  an  old  one,  to  this  degree  it  accomplishes  what  direct 
imitation  would  have  accomplished,  and  so  makes  easy  future 
repetitions  of  it,  by  the  reaction  born  of  the  old.  This  kind 
of  accommodation  by  repetition  we  have  seen  to  be  both 
indicative  of  pleasure,  and  in  developed  organisms,  also,  the 
cause  of  it.  So  in  the  fact  of  assimilation,  we  have  both  the 
method  of  central  organic  development,  and  the  platform 
upon  which  the  structure  of  thought  must  be  built.  To  say 
that  identity  is  necessary  to  thought,  therefore,  is  only  to  say 
that  it  expresses  in  a  generalization  the  method  of  mental 
development  by  imitative  reaction. 

In  an  earlier  work  1  I  have  depicted  the  progress  of  con- 
sciousness through  the  operations  of  reasoning  —  conception, 

1  Handbook,  Vol.  I.,  Senses  and  Intellect,  Chap.  XIV.      See  also  the  work 
Thought  and  Things,  Vol.  II.,  Chap.  I.,  and  Vol.  II.,  Chap.  II. 
306 


Conception  and  Thought  307 

judgment,  syllogism  —  in  its  search  for  identities,  and  I  need 
not  enlarge  upon  it  here.  The  new  doctrine  of  judgment, 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  Brentano,  for  the  first  time  did 
justice  to  the  demand  for  unity  found  everywhere  in  mental 
operations.  Judgment  always  deals  with  one  object,  not  two. 
So  the  mental  demand  for  identity  is  really  a  demand,,  i.e.  an 
irresistible  tendency  to  act  in  one  way  upon  a  variety  of  ex- 
periences. Identity  is  the  formal  or  logical  expression  of 
the  principle  of  Habit.  It  is  for  logic,  which  deals  with  terms 
and  copulas,  what  smooth  assimilation  and  swift  appercep- 
tion are  for  psychology,  which  deals  with  elements  and  pro- 
cesses. 

The  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  is  subject  to  a  corre- 
sponding genetic  expression,  on  the  side  of  Accommodation. 
Sufficient  reason,  in  the  child's  mind,  is  a  presupposition 
belief :  anything  in  its  experience  which  tends  to  modify  the 
course  of  its  habitual  reactions  in  a  way  which  it  must 
accept,  indorse,  believe  —  this  has  its  sufficient  reason,  and 
it  accommodates  to  it.  I  have  argued  elsewhere1  that  a 
conflict  between  the  established,  the  habitual,  the  taken  for 
granted,  on  one  hand,  and  the  new,  raw,  and  violent,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  necessary  to  excite  doubt,  which  is  the  prelimi- 
nary to  belief.  And  belief  follows  only  when  a  kind  of  as- 
similation or  reconciliation  takes  place.  But  this  assimilation 
of  the  new,  the  doubtful,  to  the  old,  the  established,  is  only 
done  by  the  union  of  the  potencies  for  action,  in  a  common 
plan  of  action.  Belief  arises  in  the  child  in  the  readjustment  or 
accommodation  of  himself  actively  to  new  elements  of  reality. 
Only  then  does  he  pass  from  'reality-feeling,'  which  accom- 
panies unimpeded  habit,  to  belief,  which  comes  from  a  new 
adjustment  of  the  claims  of  impeded  and  split-up  habits. 

In  so  far  as  there  is  truth  in  this  view,  in  so  far  does  Suffi- 

1  Handbook,  Feeling  and  Will,  Chap.  VII. 


308  Conscious  Imitation 

cient  Reason  become  a  formal  or  logical  statement  of  the 
fact  of  Accommodation.  It  is  for  logic,  again,  what  the  more 
violent  reconciliations,  hard-bought  syntheses,  strains  to  com- 
pass all  in  a  single  'span  of  consciousness,'  are  for  psychology. 

Put  more  broadly :  whenever  we  believe  a  new  thing  or  ac- 
cept it  as  real,  we  accommodate  our  attitude  to  its  presence, 
we  make  place  for  it  in  our  store  of  acquisitions  for  future 
use ;  this  means  that  we  are  prepared  to  reproduce  it  volun- 
tarily and  involuntarily,  to  make  it  a  part  of  that  copy  system 
which  hangs  together  in  our  memory,  as  representing  a  con- 
sistent course  of  conduct  and  the  best  adjustment  we  have  been 
able  to  effect  to  our  physical  and  moral  environment.  And  on 
the  other  hand,  anything  which  cannot  get  into  this  system  is 
not  believed;  and  we  say  we  do  not  believe  it  because  it 
lacks  just  in  this  sufficient  ground  or  reason.  The  fact  is, 
that  not  believing  a  thing  simply  means  that  we  have  not  been 
able  to  link  it  up  and  hold  it  in  the  system  of  copy  elements 
which  we  have  established  by  long  and  patient  action. 

So  here  also  imitation  is  the  method  by  which  our  milieu 
of  thought  and  feeling  in  all  its  aspects  gets  carried  over  and 
reproduced  within  us  in  a  system  of  relationships  to  which  we 
have  learned  to  react.  We  live  by  faith,  now,  not  by  sight, 
because  we  depict  truth  in  these  relationships  whose  very 
establishing  by  our  own  action  has  given  us  the  only  warrant 
we  have  of  their  security.  Our  consciousness  of  the  relation- 
ships of  the  elements  of  this  reproduced  world,  as  sustaining 
one  another  —  and  sustaining  our  trust  —  this  is  our  sense 
of  sufficient  reason.  Our  accompanying  sense  of  acceptance 
and  endorsement  of  these  copies  as  suited  to  draw  out  our 
action  —  this  is  belief ;  and  the  familiarity  which  repetition 
engenders  betokens  the  growth  of  habit  and  the  sense  of 
identity. 

Conception  then  arises,  too,  and  it  proceeds  by  identities 


Conception  and  Thought  309 

and  sufficient  reasons;  and  we  get  in  this  connection  a 
genetic  view  of  the  general  notion.  The  child  begins  with 
what  seems  to  be  a  'general.'  His  earliest  experiences, 
carried  over  into  memory,  become  general  copies  which 
stand  as  assimilative  nets  for  every  new  event  or  object. 
All  men  are  'papa,'  all  colours  are  'wed,'  all  food  'mik.' 
Professor  Cattell  informs  me  that  his  little  girl,  after  getting 
pain  from  certain  bumps  of  head,  etc.,  got  to  calling  all  bodily 
pain '  bump-bump.'  And  her  little  brother  further  generalized 
the  term  to  apply  to  all  mental  discomforts,  such  as  disagree- 
able emotions,  fears,  etc.  What  this  really  means  is,  that 
the  child's  motor  outlets  are  fewer  than  his  receptive  ex- 
periences. Each  experience  of  man,  e.g.,  calls  out  the  same 
attitude,  the  same  incipient  movement,  the  same  sort  of  atten- 
tion, on  his  part,  as  that  with  which  he  hails  'papa.'  In 
other  words,  each  man  is  a  repetition  of  the  papa  copy,  and 
carries  the  child  out  in  action,  just  as  his  own  early  response 
to  the  presence  of  the  real  papa  carried  him  out.  But  of 
course  this  does  not  continue.  By  his  learning  new  accom- 
modations, by  his  having  experiences  which  will  not  assimi- 
late, this  dominancy  of  habit  is,  in  part,  counteracted ;  his 
classes  grow  more  numerous  as  his  reactions  do,  his  general 
notions  become  more  'reasonable,'  and  he  is  on  the  proper 
way  to  a  '  rectification  of  the  concept.' 

The  ordinary  question  of  the  rise  of  the  'concept'  from 
the  'percept'  may,  accordingly,  get  its  answer  in  this  view; 
and  it  is  well  to  go  a  little  more  into  details.  It  is  only 
partially  true  that  the  concept  arises  from  the  percept  at  all. 
It  is  rather  true  that  the  two  arise  together,  by  the  same 
mental  movement,  which  is  apperception  or  motor  synthesis. 
Going  back  again  to  that  neglected  period,  infancy,  we  may 
ask,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  what  takes  place. 

Suppose,  after  the  very  common  method  of  the  day,  a 


310  Conscious  Imitation 

single  presentation,  A,  in  the  infant  consciousness;  then 
suppose  it  removed.  The  child  is  now  ready  to  germinate 
in  two  different  ways,  forward  and  backward,  future-ward 
and  past- ward.  He  remembers  and  he  expects.  Viewed  as 
memory ',  his  experience,  A,  is  particular,  a  sensation,  after  a 
time  a  percept.  But  it  includes  more  than  his  simple  re- 
ceptive state.  He  reacts  to  it,  and  so  stands  ready  to  react 
to  it  again.  This  readiness  is  his  expectation,  —  the  ten- 
dency he  has  to  a  definite  reaction ;  and  as  the  only  one,  it 
stands  ready  to  'go  off'  on  any  kind  of  stimulus  which  is 
locally  near  enough  to  discharge  that  way.  His  memory 
then  becomes  schematic1  of  the  future.  Viewed  as  ex- 
pectation, it  is  the  whole  of  the  child's  reality;  it  is  what 
will  happen,  for  it  is  all  that  can  happen ;  he  knows  nothing 
else.  Whatever  then  actually  does  happen  is  at  first  reacted 
to  as  A,  and  remains  A,  by  this  active  confirmation,  if  it  is 
possible  for  the  child's  consciousness  to  keep  it  A.  This 
meaning  that  past  experience,  taken  as  representing  future  ex- 
perience, is '  schematic ' 1 1  may  call  the  concept  of  the  first  degree. 
It  means  that  at  this  stage  particular  experiences  are  the 
measure  of  all  things,  of  things  undefined ;  since  they  are  all 
that  the  organism  is  accommodated  to,  and  they  are  the 
copies  to  which  all  experiences  are  assimilated  if  possible. 
The  child  is  under  the  reign  of  habit  or  identity. 

But  as  particulars  increase,  they  limit  one  another,  both 
in  memory  and  in  expectation.  In  expectation,  because  they 
are  brought  only  partially  under  common  tendencies  of  dis- 
charge in  action;  in  memory,  because  by  this  tendency  to 
partial  disunion  in  action  they  are  subject  to  the  great  processes 
of  assimilation,  association,  and  inhibition.  Instead  of  A  (red 
colour)  happening,  B  (green  colour)  happens ;  and  instead  of 

1  The  word  'Schema'  for  such  a  meaning  is  suggested  in  the  work 
Thought  and  Things,  Chap.  VIII.,  §§  6  ff. 


Conception  and  Thought  311 

all  my  reds  being  red  squares,  and  all  my  greens,  green  squares, 
I  have  red  circles  and  green  circles,  red  and  green  triangles, 
fantastic  shapes  of  red  and  green,  etc.  This  means  two 
things  in  the  growth  of  concepts :  first,  that  my  expectation 
is  no  longer  of  all  reds,  i.e.  my  red  is  no  longer  a  concept  of 
the  first  degree.  It  cannot,  by  passing  off  through  a  single 
motor  discharge,  stand  for  all  colours.  Green  is  in  part 
refractory.  So  red  is  now  a  particular  as  compared  with 
green.  And,  second,  my  expectation  is  no  longer  that  all  my 
reds  will  be  square,  for  the  same  reason  as  before.  There 
will  be  circular,  triangular,  irregular  reds.  But  with  it  all 
they  are  equally  red.  In  this  respect  they  do  assimilate,  and 
my  red  is  now  general  as  compared  with  particular  instances 
of  red.  Now  this  particularizing  of  experiences  in  reference 
to  one  another  is  the  function  of  perception,  and  this  gen- 
eralizing of  experience,  with  reference  to  its  single  instances, 
is  conception,  which  gives  the  general,  a  concept  of  the  second 
degree.  So  conception  and  perception  arise  together. 

At  the  same  time,  experience  takes  on  another  psycho- 
logical aspect.  New  experience  not  only  adds  new  items 
opposed  to  old  items,  but  it  leads  to  revision  of  the  old  — 
all  through  the  law  of  assimilation  by  means  of  motor  re- 
action. What  passed  for  greens  turn  out  to  be  partly  blues ; 
they  accordingly  require  and  secure  a  modified  action ;  so  in 
my  expectation  of  greens,  I  may  no  longer  accept  blues. 
So  also  I  leave  out  the  demand  that  my  greens  be  either 
square,  or  circular,  or  triangular,  i.e.  I  leave  out  figure.  This 
means  that  in  my  more  generalized  motor  reaction  to  colour, 
I  leave  out  the  more  special  eye  explorations  which  contrib- 
ute the  figure-value  to  the  complex  content.  Or,  to  give  a 
more  concrete  example,  first,  boat  is  boat  with  spread  sails, 
three  masts,  and  sailors  in  the  rigging;  then  sailors  are 
dropped,  sails  and  masts  go,  etc.  What  is  left  is  ordinarily 


312  Conscious  Imitation 

said  to  be  abstracted,  as,  for  instance,  the  concept  colour,  a 
quality  abstracted  from  particular  instances.  But  true  ab- 
straction is  not  a  singling  out ;  it  is  rather  a  paring  down,  a 
wearing  off,  an  erosion,  due  to  the  progress  in  adjustment 
which  the  organism  has  been  able  to  effect  under  the  law  of 
the  reduction  of  motor  habits  by  compounding.1  Thus  is 
reached  a  concept  of  the  third  degree.  It  represents  that 
which  is  essential  in  an  experience,  not  only  as  tested  by  its 
uninterrupted  recurrence  amid  shifting  and  drifting  details, 
but  more  especially  by  its  regular  calling-out  force  upon  me 
in  some  great  fixed  way  of  acting. 

How  experience  gets  collected,  related,  distinguished,  in 
this  way,  is  ordinarily  the  question  of  the  function  of  con- 
sciousness itself.  I  prefer  to  call  the  process  considered 
thus  as  mental  function,  apperception,  and  to  say  that  both 
the  percept  and  the  concept  arise  by  the  apperceptive  func- 
tion of  consciousness,  to  which  a  genetic  construction  is 
given  in  the  earlier  pages.  They  become,  on  this  view, 
simply  different  aspects  of  one  thing  —  a  synthesis  of  ele- 
ments. Looked  at  backward,  the  product  is  an  event,  a 
particular,  a  percept,  a  concept;  looked  at  forward,  it  is 
'  schematic '  of  other  events  still  to  be  determined  by  action. 

We  are  now  able,  in  summing  up,  to  make  out  two  im- 
portant points  for  psychology,  I  think.  First,  we  see  that 
this  so-called  apperception  is  genetically  the  simple  fact  of 
motor  habit,  with  the  assimilations  and  associations  which 
it  gives  rise  to.  Motor  habit  is  the  great  devouring  thing 
which  throws  its  arms  around  all  mental  details  and  unifies 
them  in  its  embrace.  The  most  refined  and  subtile  form  of 
it  takes  place  higher  in  attention.  Attention  is  the  vehicle  of 

1  See  above,  Chap.  VIII.,  §  4.  For  a  later  development  of  the  logical  side 
of  the  'general,'  the  work  Thought  and  Things,  Vol.  I.,  Chaps.  VIII.,  X., 
may  be  consulted. 


Conception  and  Thought  313 

apperception;  as  psychologists  now  agree  it  supplies  the 
'form'  to  every  'content.'  To  say  this,  however,  is  only  to 
say  that  attention,  representing  as  it  does  the  most  refined 
and  most  central  forms  of  motor  reaction  upon  revived  mental 
content  —  that  its  adjustments  are  the  medium  of  concep- 
tion, thought,  reasoning,  of  all  possible  groupings  and  arrang- 
ings  in  the  mind.  Thought,  therefore,  exhibits  a  new  stage 
in  motor  accommodation.  It  shows  the  organism's  adjust- 
ments to  the  relationships  of  truth,  as  memory,  perception, 
sensation,  show  its  adjustments  to  those  of  fact.  The  mechan- 
ism of  voluntary  attention,  by  which  this  selection  or  adjust- 
ment proceeds,  is  described  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  second  thing  which  may  now  be  said,  is  that  this 
view  shows  why  we  have  never  been  able  to  find  a  mental 
picture  or  content  for  a  'general  notion.'  Attempts  at  this 
culminated  but  did  not  terminate  with  Hume.  It  is  evident 
that  the  'general'  or  'abstract'  is  not  a  content  at  all.  It  is 
an  attitude,  an  expectation,  a  motor  tendency.  It  is  the 
possibility  of  a  reaction  which  will  answer  equally  for  a 
great  many  particular  experiences.  As  far  as  there  are  the 
particular  images  which  Hume  pointed  out,  and  such  pro- 
cesses of  composition  as  those  made  much  of  by  Waitz  —  these 
are  both  true  statements  of  partial  aspects  of  the  broader 
fact  of  assimilation  which  has  been  given  general  treatment 
in  the  exposition  above.1 

1  I  may  note  the  agreement  intimated  in  the  following  quotations  from  a 
Syllabus  of  Lectures  by  Professor  Royce:  "All  general  ideas  are  the  mental 
aspects  of  habits  of  response  in  presence  of  those  general  characters  of  things 
to  which  the  ideas  in  question  relate.  Without  motor  habits,  no  ideas;" 
"consciously  general  ideas  are  the  mental  aspects  of  deliberately  formed 
habits  of  response  to  the  general  characters  of  things ;  and  for  that  very 
reason  are  modifiable  in  definite  ways,  and  are,  accordingly,  more  or  less  suc- 
cessfully adjustable  to  decidedly  novel  conditions.  Of  such  deliberate  habits 
of  response  the  processes  of  language  are  a  familiar  example."  "These  attri- 
butes of  Deliberateness  and  Modifiability  are  in  general  due  to  the  Influence 


314  Conscious  Imitation 


§  2.   Conception  as  Class-recognition 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  formation  of  the  general 
notion,  its  relation  to  recognition  becomes  interesting.  This 
point  has  never  been  made  clear,  I  think,  on  any  of  the  old 
theories.  How  is  it  that  a  single  object  is  recognized  as 
belonging  to  the  class  which  is  covered  by  a  general  concept  ? 
It  is  evident  that  this  presents  a  different  phase  of  recogni- 
tion from  that  which  comes  to  view  in  the  recognition  of  a 
single  object  as  the  same  single  object.  Calling  this  further 
kind  of  recognition  'class- recognition,'  we  find  it  now  pos- 
sible to  suggest  an  explanation  of  it. 

We  found  convenient,  it  will  be  remembered,  a  certain 
formula  in  speaking  of  the  elements  involved  in  attention; 
the  formula  A  +  a+a.  A  represents  the  fixed,  habitual, 
always-present  strains,  stresses,  organic  movings,  etc.,  in- 
volved in  every  act  of  attention.  This  element  involves  the 
stable  elements  of  the  sense  of  self,  and  so  carries  self-recog- 
nition or  sense  of  personal  identity  with  it.  This  is  the 
extreme  case  of  recognition  on  the  habit  side.  The  third 
element,  a,  further  has  already  been  seen  to  give  us,  in  its 
changes  from  one  to  another  experience  of  the  same  object 
or  content,  the  sense  of  recognition  at  the  other  extreme, 
the  accommodation  extreme,  the  absolute  recognitions  from 

of  the  Imitative  Function.  For  imitation,  although  founded  on  instinct,  im- 
plies for  its  development  Deliberateness  and  Plasticity  of  adjustment.  Ra- 
tional General  Ideas  are  therefore,  on  the  whole,  products  of  imitation,  arc 
the  mental  aspects  of  imitative  motor  habits  of  response  to  the  socially  recog- 
nized general  aspects  of  things." 

The  true  'general,'  however,  is  a  meaning  of  established  habit;  a  retro- 
spective meaning,  in  contrast  with  the  '  schematic '  or  prospective  meaning 
which  is  one  of  accommodation  to  new  cases  as  yet  not  tested  nor  assimi- 
lated. The  distinction  is  worked  out  in  the  treatise  on  genetic  logic  (Thought 
and  Things,  Vol.  I.). 


Conception  as  Class-recognition  315 

which  objective  complexity  may  be  largely  absent.  Now, 
in  the  middle,  in  the  a  element,  we  find  the  very  common 
fact  of  class- recognition  accounted  for,  in  the  main.  The 
formation  of  class  notions  we  have  seen  to  be  by  union, 
coalescence,  of  motor  processes,  with  assimilations  of  new 
elements  of  content  to  old  habitual  schemes.  Now  the  atten- 
tion is  directly  implicated  in  all  these  class  formations.  In- 
deed, it  is  by  the  training  of  attention  in  this  way  that  the 
most  stable  class  divisions  are  formed,  i.e.  those  which  mark 
off  the  great  quality-types  of  mental  processes.  One's  atten- 
tion is  visual,  or  auditive,  or  motor,  as  it  gets  habitually 
exercised  with  one  or  other  of  the  senses.1  So  the  elements, 
in  an  act  of  attention,  which  arise  from  the  contractions 
peculiar  to  one  kind  of  content,  remaining  relatively  constant 
for  all  instances  of  that  kind  of  content,  give  us  the  recogni- 
tion-coefficient for  that  class.  I  recognize  a  visual  picture  as 
something  I  have  seen,  because  it  stirs  up  that  a  element  of 
attention  which  consists  in  the  motor  revivals,  reverbera- 
tions, etc.,  of  the  eyebrow,  frown-muscles,  scalp  shif tings, 
etc.,  peculiar  to  visual  attention.  'Auditory  class-recognition 
proceeds,  similarly,  upon  revived  auditory  attention-strains, 
etc.  So  we  have  in  the  a  element  in  the  attention  formula 
sufficient  explanation  of  class- recognition,  and  of  its  position 
midway  between  recognition  of  self  and  recognition  of  single 
objects,  qua  single.  Of  course,  as  Wundt  says,  just  in  so 
far  as  a  single  object  is  recognized  as  complex,  and  by  reason 
of  its  complexity,  just  so  far  it  tends  to  become  a  case  of 
class- recogni tion ;  inasmuch  as  the  relationships  inside  of 
which  its  assimilation  proceeds  are  common  nets  for  a 
possibly  varied  filling. 

The  three  recognition  phenomena,  therefore,  which  this 
scheme  sets  in  order  are,  self-identity  (A),  the  great  ground  - 

1  This  is  taken  up  in  some  detail  in  the  chapter  on  Attention  (Chap.  XV.). 


316  Conscious  Imitation 

swell  of  organic  habit,  and  mental  sameness;  class-recogni- 
tion (a),  covering  the  wide  objective  side,  the  contents  sub- 
ject to  assimilation  in  classes ;  and  absolute  recognition  (a), 
the  refined  adjustments  in  which  present  functional  elements 
are  paramount.  The  motor  formula  for  attention,  then,  adds 
up  these  three  elements,  all  of  which  are  facts  of  attention, 
giving  Alt.  =  A  +  a  +  a. 

§  3.   Emotion  and  Sentiment l 

Again,  in  the  affective  life  we  find  evidence  of  the  working 
of  the  imitative  principle.  Emotion  we  have  seen  to  be, 
largely,  in  its  qualitative  marks,  a  revival  product,  a  cluster- 
ing, so  to  speak,  of  organic  and  muscular  reverberations 
about  revived  elements  of  content.  So  the  production  of 
emotion  depends  upon  the  reinstatement,  by  association  or 
action,  of  parts  of  the  ideal  copy  system  which  it  is  the  func- 
tion of  memory  and  association  to  build  up  and  to  preserve. 
This  follows  from  what  we  have  said  in  two  earlier  discus- 
sions, that  on  the  nature  of  emotion,  and  that  on  the  organic 
basis  of  memory  and  association. 

There  is,  however,  one  class  of  emotions  which  show  more 
clearly  the  fact  that  the  framework  of  ideas  to  which  emotion 
attaches  is  really  a  product  of  imitation ;  these  are  the  sym- 
pathetic emotions.  Sympathy  may  be  called  the  imitative 
emotion  par  excellence.  My  child  H.  cried  out  when  I 
pinched  a  bottle-cork  in  her  fifth  month,  and  wept  in  her 
twenty-second  week  at  the  sight  of  a  picture  of  a  man  sitting 

1  The  balance  of  this  chapter,  and  the  next  (Chap.  XII.),  give  en  resume 
positions  which  are  developed  as  topics  of  independent  and  practical  value  in 
the  volume,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations.  They  are  given  here  under  the 
general  head  of  imitation,  in  order  to  make  passably  complete  the  applica- 
tions of  the  imitative  principle ;  in  this  way  also  the  treatment  of  the  other 
volume  is  rendered  somewhat  less  theoretical. 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  317 

weeping,  with  bowed  head  in  his  hands,  and  his  feet  held 
fast  in  stocks.1  In  such  cases  the  presentation  is  assimilated 
to  memory  copies  of  personal  suffering,  and  so  calls  out  the 
motor  attitudes  of  the  emotions  habitual  to  experiences  of 
pleasure-  or  pain-giving  objects.  And  the  motor  discharges, 
each  time  that  they  are  repeated,  become  better  defined  and 
more  telling  upon  consciousness. 

In  many  cases,  however,  I  think  the  associative  order  in  the 
sympathetic  emotions  is  the  reverse  of  this.  The  sight  of  the 
expression  of  emotion  in  another  stimulates  similar  attitudes 
directly  in  us,  and  this  in  turn  is  felt  as  the  state  which  usually 
accompanies  such  a  reaction.  The  two  cases  of  sympathy  in  my 
child,  given  above,  illustrate  the  truth  of  both  these  accounts. 

The  sympathetic  emotion,  in  fact,  shows  the  'circular' 
form  of  reaction.  The  pain-suggesting  presentation  is  itself 
the  copy  which  tends  to  bring  about  appropriate  attitudes 
in  the  person  having  it.  And  all  emotion  has  the  same  origin 
as  this.  The  'expression'  of  fear,  for  example,  is  a  rein- 
statement of  motor  and  organic  disturbances  which  were, 
first  of  all,  utility  reactions  upon  a  stimulation.  But  all 
utility  reactions  upon  a  stimulation  are  simply  those  elements, 
in  a  larger  diffused  'excess'  discharge,  which  were  selected 
just  because  they  were  fitted  to  maintain  or  avoid,  as  the  case 
may  be,  a  particular  kind  of  stimulation.  So  just  in  so  far 
as  the  position  is  valid  that  all  adapted  movements  are  il- 
lustrations of  the  fundamental  vital  adaptations  represented 
by  reaching-out  and  drawing-in  movements,  just  so  far  all 
the  revivals  of  them,  which  break  into  consciousness  as  emo- 
tion, are  imitative  in  their  origin. 

1  This  is,  I  own,  a  remarkably  early  recognition  of  a  pictorial  rendering 
of  expression ;  but  I  have  the  date  recorded.  The  picture  will  be  found  on 
page  227  of  Bissell's  Biblical  Antiquities.  Darwin  reported  'sympathy'  in 
his  child,  six  months  and  eleven  days  old,  Mind,  II.,  p.  289. 


318  Conscious  Imitation 

There  are,  further,  two  or  three  special  illustrations  of  this 
function  of  imitation  in  the  genesis  of  emotion  so  clear  in 
the  making,  in  children,  that  I  shall  briefly  trace  them.  First 
let  us  consider  the  sense  of  self,  with  its  remarkable  group 
of  emotions. 

I  have  described  in  an  earlier  place  the  kind  of  responses 
which  infants  make  in  the  presence  of  persons,  and  the  main 
facts  may  be  here  recalled.  We  have  seen  that  one  of  the 
most  striking  tendencies  of  the  very  young  child  in  its  re- 
sponses to  its  environment  is  the  tendency  to  recognize  differ- 
ences of  personality.  It  responds  to  what  I  have  called  '  sug- 
gestions of  personality.'  As  early  as  the  second  month,  it 
distinguishes  its  mother's  or  nurse's  touch  in  the  dark.  It 
learns  characteristic  methods  of  holding,  taking  up,  patting, 
kissing,  etc.,  and  adapts  itself,  by  a  marvellous  accuracy  of 
protestation  or  acquiescence,  to  these  personal  variations. 
Its  associations  of  personality  come  to  be  of  such  importance 
that  for  a  long  time  its  happiness  or  misery  depends  upon  the 
presence  of  certain  kinds  of  'personality-suggestion.'  It  is 
quite  a  different  thing  from  the  child's  behaviour  towards 
things  which  are  not  persons.  Things  get  to  be,  with  some 
few  exceptions  which  are  involved  in  the  direct  gratification 
of  appetite,  more  and  more  unimportant;  things  get  subor- 
dinated to  regular  treatment  or  reaction.  But  persons 
become  constantly  more  important,  as  uncertain  and  dominat- 
ing agents  of  pleasure  and  pain.  The  fact  of  movement  by 
persons  and  its  effects  on  the  infant  seem  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant factor  in  this  peculiar  influence ;  later  the  voice  gets 
to  stand  for  a  person's  presence,  and  at  last  the  face  and  its 
expressions  equal  the  person,  in  all  his  attributes. 

I  think  this  distinction  between  persons  and  things, 
between  agencies  and  objects,  is  the  child's  very  first  step 
toward  a  sense  of  the  qualities  which  distinguish  persons. 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  319 

The  sense  of  uncertainty  or  lack  of  confidence  grows  stronger 
and  stronger  in  its  dealings  with  persons  —  an  uncertainty 
contingent  upon  the  moods,  emotions,  nuances  of  expression, 
and  shades  of  treatment,  of  the  persons  around  it.  A  per- 
son stands  for  a  group  of  experiences  quite  unstable  in  its 
prophetic  as  it  is  in  its  historical  meaning.  This  we  may, 
for  brevity  of  expression,  assuming  it  to  be  first  in  order  of 
development,  call  the  'protective  stage' *  in  the  growth  of  the 
personal  consciousness,  which  is  so  important  an  element  in 
social  emotion. 

Further  observation  of  children  shows  that  the  instrument 
of  transition  from  such  a  'projective'  to  a  subjective  sense  of 
personality,  is  the  child's  active  bodily  self,  and  the  method 
of  it  is  the  principle  of  imitation.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  ac- 
commodation by  actual  muscular  imitation  does  not  arise  in 
most  children  until  about  the  seventh  month,  so  utterly  or- 
ganic is  the  child  before  this,  and  so  great  is  the  impetus  of  its 
congenital  instincts  and  tendencies.  But  when  the  organism 
is  ripe,  by  reason  of  cerebral  development,  for  the  enlargement 
of  its  active  range  by  new  accommodations,  then  he  begins  to 
be  dissatisfied  with  'projects,'  with  contemplation,  and  so 
starts  on  his  career  of  imitation.  And  of  course  he  imitates 
persons.  Persons  have  become,  by  all  his  business  with  them 
and  theirs  with  him,  his  interesting  objects,  the  source  of  his 
weal  or  woe,  his  uncertain  factors.  And  further,  persons  ar£ 
bodies  which  move,  and  among  these  bodies  which  move, 
which  have  certain  projective  attributes,  as  already  described, 
a  very  peculiar  and  interesting  one  is  his  own  body.  It 
has  connected  with  it  certain  intimate  features  which 
all  others  lack.  Besides  the  inspection  of  hand  and  foot, 

1  See  the  detailed  observations  and  analysis  of  these  'personal  projects,' 
above,  Chap.  VI.,  §§  3,  6.  The  use  of  the  word  'project'  is  justified  in  the 
earlier  connection. 


320  Conscious  Imitation 

by  touch  and  sight,  he  has  experiences  in  his  consciousness 
which  are  in  all  cases  connected  with  this  body,  — strains, 
stresses,  resistances,  pains,  etc.,  —  an  inner  felt  series 
matching  the  outer  presented  series.  But  it  is  only  when 
a  new  kind  of  experience  arises  which  we  call  effort 
—  a  set  opposition  to  strain,  stress,'  resistance,  pain,  an  ex- 
perience which  arises,  I  think,  first  as  imitative  effort  —  that 
there  comes  that  great  line  of  cleavage  in  his  experience  which 
indicates  the  rise  of  volition,  and  which  separates  off  the 
series  now  first  really  subjective.  Persistent  imitation  with 
effort  is  the  typical  case  of  explicit  volition,  and  the  first 
germinating  nucleus  of  self-hood  over  against  object-hood. 
Situations  before  accepted  simply,  are  now  set  forward,  aimed 
at,  wrought ;  and  in  the  fact  of  aiming,  working,  the  fact  of 
agency,  which  we  have  found  to  arise  with  the  child's  realiza- 
tion of  the  possible  capriciousness  of  character,  is  the  nascent 
sense  of  subject.1 

The  subject  sense,  then,  is  an  actuating  sense.  What  has 
formerly  been  'projective'  now  becomes  'subjective.'  The 
associates  of  other  personal  bodies,  the  attributes  which  made 
them  different  from  things,  are  now  attached  to  his  own  body 
with  the  further  peculiarity  of  actuation.  This  we  may  call 
the  subjective  stage  in  the  growth  of  the  self-notion.  It  rapidly 
assimilates  to  itself  all  the  other  elements  by  which  the  child's 
own  body  differs  in  his  experience  from  other  active  bodies,  — 
the  passive  inner  series  of  pains,  pleasures,  strains,  etc.  The 
self  suffers  as  well  as  acts.  All  get  set  over  against  lifeless 
things,  and  against  other  bodies  which  act,  indeed,  but  whose 

1  It  is  in  exhibition  of  this  new  sense  of  agency,  or  power  over  its  own 
actions,  with  their  suggestiveness  to  others,  that  the  child's  first  conscious 
'lies'  seem  to  appear;  and  these  lies  are  generally  of  great  value  as  being 
the  means  of  bringing  out,  in  its  earliest  forms,  the  originality  and  invention 
of  the  boy  or  girl.  Cases  are  given  in  the  chapter  on  '  Invention '  in  Social 
and  Ethical  Interpretations. 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  321 

actions  do  not  contribute  to  his  own  sense  of  actuation  or  of 
suffering. 

Again,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  now  happens.  The  child's 
subject  sense  goes  out  by  a  kind  of  return  dialectic,  which 
is  really  simply  a  second  case  of  assimilation,  to  illuminate 
these  other  persons.  The  project  of  the  earlier  period  is  now 
lighted  up,  claimed,  clothed  on  with  the  raiment  of  self-hood, 
by  analogy  with  the  subjective.  The  projective  becomes 
ejective;  that  is,  other  people's  bodies,  says  the  child  to 
himself,  have  experiences  in  them  such  as  mine  has.  They 
are  also  me's:  let  them  be  assimilated  to  my  me  copy. 
This  is  the  third  stage;  the  ejective,  or  'social'  self,  is 
born.1 

The  ego  and  the  alter  are  thus  born  together.  Both  are 
crude  and  unreflective,  largely  organic,  an  aggregate  of  sensa- 
tions, prime  among  which  are  efforts,  pushes,  strains,  physi- 
cal pleasures  and  pains.  And  the  two  get  purified  and 
clarified  together  by  this  twofold  reaction  between  project  and 
subject,  and  between  subject  and  eject.  My  sense  of  myself 
grows  by  imitation  of  you,  and  my  sense  of  yourself  grows  in 
terms  of  my  sense  of  myself.  Both  ego  and  alter  are  thus 
essentially  social;  each  is  a  socius,  and  each  is  an  imitative 
creation.  So  for  a  long  time  the  child's  sense  of  self  includes 
too  much.  The  circumference  of  the  notion  is  too  wide. 
It  includes  the  infant's  mother,  and  little  brother,  and  nurse, 
in  a  literal  sense ;  for  they  are  what  he  thinks  of  and  aims  to 
act  like,  by  imitating,  when  he  thinks  of  himself.  To  be 
separated  from  his  mother  is  to  lose  a  part  of  himself,  as 
much  so  as  to  be  separated  from  a  hand  or  foot.  And  he 
is  dependent  for  his  growth  directly  upon  these  sugges- 

1 1  think  an  adequate  apprehension  of  the  distinctions  conveyed  by  the 
three  words  'projective,'  'subjective,'  and  'ejective,'  would  do  much  to  banish 
the  popular  '  psychologist 's  fallacy.' 


322  Conscious  Imitation 

tions  which  come  in  for  imitation  from  his  personal 
milieu.1 

It  will  be  seen  by  readers  of  R.  Avenarius,2  that  the  two 
stages  of  this  development  correspond  to  the  two  stages  in 
his  process  of  Intr ejection,  whereby  the  'hypothetical'  (per- 
sonal-organic) element  of  the  naturlichen  Weltbegriff  is  se- 
cured. Avenarius  finds,  from  analytical  and  anthropological 
points  of  view,  a  process  of  'attribution,'  reading-in  (Einle- 
gung),  by  which  a  consciousness  comes  to  interpret  certain 
peculiarities  attaching  to  those  items  in  its  experience  which 
represent  organisms  and  afterwards  persons.  The  second 
stage  is  that  whereby  these  peculiarities  get  carried  back  and 
attached  to  its  own  organism  (Selbsteinlegung),  and  recognized 
as  'subjective'  (sensations,  perceptions,  thoughts),  in  both 
organisms,  over  against  the  regular  'objective'  elements  con- 
tained in  the  rest  of  the  world  experience. 

This  general  doctrine  of  Avenarius  finds  better  justifica- 
tion than  he  gives  it,  I  think,  from  the  genetic  sphere,  into 
which  he  does  not  go.  The  two  phenomena,  'personality- 
suggestion'  and  'imitation,'  supply  just  the  support  for  a 
revised  doctrine  of  'Introjection.'  First  comes  what  I  have 
called,  in  what  precedes,  the  'projective'  stage  of  the  self- 
notion.  It  is  the  stage  in  which  the  infant  gets  'personality- 
suggestions.'  It  is  simply  the  infant's  way  of  getting  'more 
copy '  of  a  peculiar  kind  from  the  personal  element  in  its  ob- 
jective surroundings.  The  second  stage  is  secured  by  imita- 

1  Professor  Josiah  Royce  has  expressed,  in  an  article  in  the  Philosophical 
Review,  November,  1894,  a  view  of  the  growth  of  the  self -notion  in  the  child's 
consciousness  in  close  agreement,  in  many  points,  with  this ;  and  I  take  pleas- 
ure in  referring  to  his  development  as  similar  to  the  detailed  statement 
of  my  other  volume.  My  present  text  appeared,  in  much  the  same  words  as 
now,  in  Mind  for  January,  1894.  Royce's  paper  is  now  to  be  found  in  his 
volume,  Studies  in  Good  and  Evil. 

3  Kritik  der  reinen  Erfahrung,  and  also  Der  menschliche  Weltbegriff. 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  323 

tion.  The  child  reproduces  the  copy  thus  obtained,  consist- 
ing of  the  physical  signs,  and,  through  them,  of  the  mental 
accompaniments.  Here  the  imitation  of  emotional  expres- 
sions has  its  great  influence.  By  this  reproduction  it  'in- 
terprets '  its  projects  as  subjective,  in  itself,  and  then  refers 
them  back  to  the  'other  person'  again,  with  all  the  gain  of 
this  interpretation.  Avenarius,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
discover,  has  no  means  of  passing  from  the  first  to  the  second 
stage,  from  project  to  subject.  He  speaks  l  of  a  certain  confu- 
sion (Verwechselung)  of  the  projective  experience  (T-Er- 
fahrung)  with  the  remaining  personal  elements  in  conscious- 
ness (M-Erjahrung) :  but  what  the  true  leading-thread  into 
this  'confusion'  and  out  of  it  is,  he  does  not  note.  This  is 
just  what  I  claim  it  is  the  function  of  imitation  to  do ;  it  sup- 
plies the  bridge  with  two  reaches.  It  enables  me  —  the 
child  —  to  pass  from  my  experience  of  what  you  are,  to  an 
interpretation  of  what  I  am ;  and  then  from  this  fuller  sense 
of  what  I  am,  back  to  a  fuller  knowledge  of  what  you  are.2 

1  Der  menschliche  Weltbegriff,  §  51,  p.  30,  and  §  95,  p.  49. 

1  In  the  use  of  the  two  facts,  'personality-suggestion'  and  'imitation,' 
therefore,  my  development  is  unindebted  to  Avenarius,  who  writes  from  the 
point  of  view  of  race  history  and  criticism.  I  do  not  adopt  the  word  '  intro- 
jection,'  since  it  covers  too  much.  My  word  'project'  signifies  the  child's 
sense  of  others'  personality  before  it  has  a  sense  of  its  own.  The  rest  pro- 
ceeds by  imitation.  This  distinction  of  method  raises  a  further  question 
which,  as  I  have  already  said  (Chap.  I.),  should  be  carefully  discussed  in  all 
problems  for  which  a  genetic  solution  is  sought,  *.«.  how  far  the  genetic  pro- 
cess itself  in  the  individual's  growth  has  become  a  matter  of  race  habit  or 
instinct.  That  is,  granted  a  process  of  origin  correctly  depicted,  to  what 
extent  must  we  say  that  each  new  individual  of  the  race  passes  through  it  in 
all  its  details?  The  origin  of  impulse  and  instinct  illustrate  the  effects  of 
selection  in  abbreviating  these  processes  and  starting  the  individual  from 
points  of  higher  vantage.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  an  isolated  child,  for 
example,  might  not  get  a  crude  self-notion  (as  he  might  learn  to  speak 
somehow)  if  deprived  of  all  social  suggestions ;  but  that  fact  would  be  subject 
to  explanation  as  part  of  the  ability  to  learn  which  is  the  outcome,  on  a  large 
scale,  of  the  very  genetic  process  which  it  appears  to  supersede. 


324  Conscious  Imitation 

Further,  this  process  of  taking  in  elements  from  the  social 
world  by  imitation  and  giving  them  out  again  by  a  reverse 
process  of  invention  (for  such  the  sequel  proves  invention  to 
be :  the  modified  way  in  which  I  put  things  together  in  reading 
the  elements  which  I  get  from  nature  and  other  men,  back  into 
nature  and  other  men  again)  —  this  process  never  stops.  We 
never  outgrow  imitation,  nor  our  social  obligation  to  it.  Our 
sense  of  self  is  constantly  growing  richer  and  fuller  as  we 
understand  others  better,  —  as  we  get  into  social  co-operation 
with  them,  —  and  our  understanding  of  them  is  in  turn  en- 
riched by  the  additions  which  our  own  private  experience 
makes  to  the  lessons  which  we  learn  from  them.  These  and 
other  aspects  of  social  emotion,  which  come  to  mind  in  con- 
nection with  this  suggestive  topic,  are  reserved.1 

I  think  some  light  falls  on  the  growth  of  ethical  feeling, 
also,  from  the  psychology  of  imitation,  although  I  must  again 
disclaim  adequacy  of  treatment.  The  two  principles,  habit 
and  imitative  accommodation,  seem  to  get  application  on  this 
higher  plane:  the  plane  which  is  the  theatre  of  the  rise  of 
moral  sentiment.  Moral  sentiment  arises  evidently  around 
acts  and  attitudes  of  will.  It  is  accordingly  to  be  expected 
that  the  account  of  the  genesis  of  volition  will  throw  some 
light  upon  the  conditions  of  the  rise  of  conscience.  So  if  it 
be  true  that  present  character  is  the  deposit  of  all  former 
reactions  of  whatever  kind,  and  that  what  we  call  will  is  a 
general  term  for  our  concrete  acts  of  volition,  and  further  that 
volition  represents  a  co-ordination  of  tendencies,  then  ac- 
cording as  these  tendencies  are  suggestions  from  other  persons, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  represent  partial  expressions  of  one's 
own  personal  character,  on  the  other  hand,  there  arises  a 
division  within  that  sense  of  voluntary  agency  which  is  the 
germ  of  the  notion  of  self.  Your  suggestion  to  me  may  con- 
1  See,  however,  Chap.  XII.  Cf.  the  later  work. 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  325 

flict  with  my  desire ;  my  desire  may  conflict  with  my  own  pres- 
ent sympathy.  Self  meets  self,  so  to  speak.  The  self  of  ac- 
commodation, imitation,  the  self  that  learns,  collides  with  the 
self  of  habit,  of  character,  the  self  that  seeks  to  dominate. 
It  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  simple  habit  versus  simple  sugges- 
tion, as  is  the  case  in  infancy,  before  the  self  gets  the  degree 
of  complexity  which  constitutes  it  a  voluntary  agent,  as  a 
later  chapter  shows.  It  is  now  that  form  of  habit  which  is 
personal  agency,  coming  into  conflict  with  that  form  of  sug- 
gestion which  is  also  personal  to  me  as  representing  my  social 
self.  Your  example  is  powerful  to  me  intrinsically;  not 
because  it  is  abstractly  good  or  evil,  but  because  it  represents 
a  part  of  myself,  inasmuch  as  I  have  become  what  I  am  in  part 
through  my  sympathy  with  you  and  imitation  of  you.  So  your 
injunctions  to  me  bring  out  a  difference  of  motor  attitude 
between  what  is  socially  responsive  in  me,  in  a  sense  pub- 
lic, and  that  which  is  relatively  me  alone,  my  private 
self. 

When  I  come  to  a  new  moral  situation,  therefore,  my  state 
is  this,  in  each  case  —  and  we  shall  see  as  we  go  on  that  it  is 
yet  more :  I  am  in  a  condition  of  relative  equilibrium,  or 
balance  of  two  factors,  my  personal  or  habitual  self,  and  my 
social  suggestive  self.  Your  wife  announces  to  you  that  you 
are  to  go  to  a  reception  given  by  Mr.  A.  'Hang  Mr.  A !'  is 
your  first  reply  —  that  of  your  habitual  private  self.  But 
your  wife  says,  "Some  one  of  the  family  should  be  there,  and 
besides  I  want  to  go."  This  is  an  appeal  to  your  family, 
public,  social  self  in  its  broad  sense,  supplemented  by  an 
appeal  to  your  sympathetic,  narrower,  conjugal  self.  The 
new  decision  which  you  make  tends  to  destroy  this  equilib- 
rium by  reinforcing  your  'copy'  and  its  influence  in  your 
character,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  so  to  lead  you  out  for 
further  habit  or  for  new  social  adaptations. 


326  Conscious  Imitation 

And  now  on  this  basis  comes  a  new  mental  movement 
which  seems  to  me  to  involve  a  further  development  of  the 
imitative  motif  —  a  development  which  substitutes  warmth 
and  life  for  the  horrible  coldness  and  death  of  that  view 
which  identifies  voluntary  morality  with  submission  to  a 
'word  of  command.'  The  child,  it  is  true,  very  soon  comes 
across  that  most  impressive  thing  in  its  moral  environment 
which  we  call  authority ;  and  acquires  that  most  responsive 
thing  in  our  moral  equipment  which  we  call  obedience.  He 
acquires  obedience  in  one  of  two  ways,  or  both :  by  suggestion, 
or  by  reward  and  punishment.  The  way  of  suggestion  is  the 
higher;  because  it  proceeds  by  gradual  lessons  in  accom- 
modation, until  the  habit  of  regularity  in  conduct  is  acquired, 
in  opposition  to  the  capriciousness  of  his  own  reactions.  It  is 
also  the  better  way  because  it  sets  before  the  child  in  an  object 
lesson  an  example  of  that  stability  and  lawfulness  which  it  is 
the  end  of  obedience  to  foster.  Yet  the  way  of  punishment 
is  good  and  necessary.  Punishment  is  nature's  way ;  she  in- 
flicts the  punishment  first,  and  afterwards  nurses  the  insight 
by  which  the  punishment  comes  to  be  understood.  A  child's 
capricious  movement  may  bring  a  pain  which  represents  all 
the  organic  growth  of  the  race;  and  so  when  we  punish  a 
child's  capricious  conduct,  we  are  letting  fall  upon  him  the 
pain  which  represents  all  the  social  and  ethical  growth  of  the 
race.  But  by  whatever  method,  —  suggestion  or  punish- 
ment, —  the  object  is  the  same :  to  preserve  the  child,  until 
he  learns  from  his  own  habit  the  insight  which  is  nec- 
essary to  his  own  salvation  through  intelligent  submis- 
sion. 

But  whether  obedience  comes  by  suggestion  or  by  pun- 
ishment, it  has  this  genetic  value:  it  leads  to  another  re- 
finement in  the  sense  of  self,  at  first  '  projective,'  then  sub- 
jective. The  child  finds  himself  stimulated  constantly  to 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  327 

deny  his  impulses,  his  desires,  even  his  irregular  sympathies, 
by  conforming  to  the  will  of  another.  This  other  represents 
a  regular,  systematic,  unflinching,  but  reasonable  personality 
—  still  a  person,  but  a  very  different  person  from  the  child's 
own.  In  the  analysis  of  'personality  suggestion,'  we  found 
this  stage  of  the  child's  apprehension  of  persons  —  his  sense 
of  the  regularity  of  personal  character  in  the  midst  of  the 
capriciousness  that  before  this  stood  out  in  contrast  to  the 
regularity  of  mechanical  movement  in  things.  There  are 
extremes  of  indulgence,  the  child  learns,  which  even  the  grand- 
mother does  not  permit ;  there  are  extremes  of  severity  from 
which  even  the  cruel  father  draws  back.  Here,  in  this  dawn- 
ing sense  of  the  larger  limits  which  set  barriers  to  personal 
freedom,  is  the  'copy'  forming,  which  is  his  personal  authority 
or  law.  It  is  '  protective,'  because  he  cannot  understand  it, 
cannot  anticipate  it,  cannot  find  it  in  himself.  And  it  is  only 
by  imitation  that  he  is  to  reproduce  it,  and  so  arrive  at  a  know- 
ledge of  what  he  is  to  understand  it  to  be.  So  it  is  a  'copy 
for  imitation.'  It  is  its  aim,  —  so  may  the  child  say  to  him- 
self,—  and  should  be  mine,  —  if  I  am  awake  to  it, — to  have 
me  obey  it,  act  like  it,  think  like  it,  be  like  it  in  all  respects. 
It  is  not  I,  but  I  am  to  become  it.  Here  is  my  ideal  self,  my 
final  pattern,  my  'ought'  set  before  me.  My  parents  and 
teachers  are  good  because,  with  all  their  differences  from  one 
another,  they  yet  seem  to  be  alike  in  their  acquiescence  to  this 
law.  Only  in  so  far  as  I  get  into  the  habit  of  being  and  doing 
like  them  in  reference  to  it,  get  my  character  moulded  into 
conformity  with  it,  only  so  far  am  I  good,  And  so,  like  all 
other  imitative  functions,  it  teaches  its  lesson  only  by  stimu- 
lating to  action.  I  must  succeed  in  doing  —  he  finds  out,  as 
he  grows  older  and  begins  to  reflect  upon  right  and  wrong  — 
if  I  would  understand.  But  as  I  thus  progress  in  doing,  I 
forever  find  new  patterns  set  for  me ;  and  so  my  ethical  insight 


328  Conscious  Imitation 

must  always  find  its  profoundest  expression  in  that  yearn- 
ing which  anticipates,  but  does  not  overtake,  the  ideal.1 

My  sense  of  moral  ideal,  therefore,  is  my  sense  of  a  possible 
perfect,  regular  will,  taken  over  in  me,  in  which  the  personal 
and  the  social  self  —  my  habits  and  my  social  calls  —  are 
brought  completely  into  harmony ;  the  sense  of  obligation  in 
me,  in  each  case,  is  a  sense  of  lack  of  harmony  —  a  sense  of  the 
actual  discrepancies  between  my  various  concrete  thoughts  of 
self.  To  pursue  my  commonplace  illustration,  your  wife  adds 
to  the  reasons  for  your  attending  the  reception  of  Mr.  A.,  this 
one:  'And  besides,  you  ought  to  go  out  more.'  This  is  the 
profoundest  reason  of  all;  not  because  it  has  in  it  the  word 
'ought,'  merely,  but  because  it  makes  appeal  to  the  ideal 
self,  before  the  law  of  which  all  the  earlier  claims  have  their 
lesser  or  greater  value. 

And  then,  once  more,  the  thought  of  this  ideal  self,  made 
ejective,  as  it  must  be  by  the  dialectic  of  this  germinat- 
ing social  sense,  put  out  of  and  beyond  me  —  this  is  em- 
bodied in  the  moral  sanctions  of  society,  and  finally  in 
God.2 

1  A  further  important  aid  to  the  child  in  this  development  is  his  observa- 
tion of  the  way  that  other  people  behave  to  one  another  in  his  presence. 

On  the  nature  of  'ideals'  and  the  rise  of  conceptual  emotion,  in  which,  in 
my  -view,  the  sense  of  ideals,  as  being  ideal,  really  consists,  see  my  Handbook 
of  Psychology,  Vol.  II.,  Chap.  IX.,  carried  further  in  Thought  and  Things, 
Vol.  I.,  Chap.  X.,  §  8. 

J  I  can  only  mention  here  Hegel's  striking  treatment  of  the  genetic  develop- 
ment of  the  ethical  and  religious  sense  (Philosophy  oj  Mind,  §  II.), 
altogether  the  best  ever  written,  in  my  opinion,  and  Adam  Smith's  remark- 
able doctrine  of  the  social  element  in  the  moral  sense,  covered  by  the  term 
'  sympathy '  (in  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiments).  Many  facts  give  support  to 
Hegel's  intuitions.  On  the  distinctively  social  function  of  imitation,  Tarde 
and  Sighele  both  dwell  in  the  works  named,  the  latter  endeavouring  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  a  science  of  '  collective  psychology.'  A  similar  task  is  set 
in  my  later  volume.  As  to  religious  emotion,  it  is  astonishing  enough  that 
the  law  of  imitation  should  reach  so  far  as  to  touch  those  mysterious  'ideas 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  329 

The  value  of  the  ejective  sense  of  moral  self  is  seen  in 
the  great  sensitiveness  we  have  to  the  supposed  opinions 
of  others  about  our  conduct.  It  is  an  essential  and  constant 
ingredient.  From  the  account  given  of  the  rise  of  the  sense 
of  obligation,  we  should  expect  the  two  very  subtle  aspects  of 
this  sensitiveness  which  are  actually  present.  First,  in 
general,  our  dread  and  fear  before  another's  fancied  opinion 
is  in  direct  proportion  to  our  own  sense  of  self-condemnation. 
Consciousness  is  clear  on  this  point.  It  must  be  so  if  it  is  true 
that  our  sense  of  self-condemnation  is  of  social  origin,  i.e. 
arises  from  our  imitative  response  to  the  well- sanctioned 
opinions  and  commands  of  others.  But  second,  the  intel- 
ligent observation  of  the  opinions  of  others,  and  the  suffering 
of  the  penalties  of  social  law,  react  back  constantly  to  purify 
and  elevate  the  standard  which  one  sets  himself,  just  as  they 
originally  stimulated  its  rise.  There  is,  therefore,  a  constant 
progress  through  the  action  and  reaction  of  society  upon  the 
individual  and  the  individual  upon  society.  And  religious 
sanctions  get  much  of  their  force,  it  seems  to  me,  in  just  this 
same  way. 

Josiah  Royce l  distinguishes  between  the  two  earlier 
phases  of  self  which  have  been  pointed  out,  but  does  not  de- 
velop the  third.  Yet  he  indicates  clearly  and  with  emphasis 
the  twofold  element  of  conflict  under  which  the  moral  sense 
develops.  The  ordinary  accounts  on  the  natural  history  side, 
from  Darwin  2  to  the  present,  simply  describe  a  conflict  in 
consciousness  between  sympathy  and  selfishness.  This  fails 
to  do  justice  to  the  'law'  element,  which  moralists  justly 
emphasize,  in  the  genesis  of  morality.  It  gives  no  standard 

of  reason'  which  have  so  long  baffled  metaphysics.  But  —  why  should  it 
not?  Is  not  the  cry  'Anthropomorphism!'  as  old  as  Xenophanes?  And 
is  it  not  a  plea  for  or  against  imitation  ? 

1  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  July,  1893,  p.  430. 

2  Descent  oj  Man,  Part  I.,  Chap.  III. 


330  Conscious  Imitation 

of  values,  no  scale  for  the  estimation  of  the  worths  of  the  im- 
pulses which  represent  temporary  and  changing  selves.  I 
should  go  farther  than  Royce  does  in  emphasizing  this  element, 
believing  as  I  do  that  there  is  no  full  sense  of  oughtness  until 
the  child  gets  the  basis  of  a  habit,  which  not  only  calls  upon 
him  to  deny  his  private  selfishness  in  favour  of  sympathy,  but 
also  his  private  sympathies  in  favour  of  reasonable  regularity 
learned  through  submission.  The  opposition,  that  is,  be- 
tween my  regular  personal  ideal  and  all  else,  —  whether  it  be 
the  regularity  of  my  selfish  habit  or  the  irregularity  of  my 
generous  responses,  —  this  is  the  essential  condition  of  the 
rise  of  obligation.  And  it  is  in  so  far  as  this  ought-feeling 
goes  out  beyond  the  copy  elements  drawn  from  actual  in- 
stances of  action,  and  anticipates  better  or  more  ideal  action, 
that  the  antithesis  between  the  'ought'  and  the  'is'  gets  psy- 
chological justification. 

The  question,  finally,  whether  obedience  is  a  case  of  im- 
itation,1 is  a  matter  of  words.  It  is  imitation,  in  the  large 
sense  of  the  term.  As  far  as  the  copy  set  in  the  'word  of 
command'  is  reproduced,  the  reaction  is  imitative.  A  child 
cannot  obey  a  command  to  do  what  he  does  not  know  how  to 
do.  The  circumstances  of  his  doing  it,  however,  the  forcible 
presentation  of  the  copy  by  another  person,  this  seems  only 
to  add  additional  elements  to  the  copy  itself,  not  to  be  in  any 
sense  an  interference,  or  a  prevention  of  the  due  operation  of 
imitation.  The  child  has  in  view,  when  he  obeys,  not  only 
the  thing  he  is  to  do,  but  the  circumstances  —  the  conse- 
quences, the  punishment,  the  reward  —  and  these  also  he 
seeks  to  reproduce  or  to  avoid.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may 
well  be  asked  whether  all  of  our  voluntary  imitations  and 
actions  generally,  are  not,  in  a  sense,  cases  of  obedience ;  for 

1  See  discussion  by  Tarde,  loc,  tit.,  and  Paulhan,  Revue  Philosophique, 
August,  1890,  p.  179;  alsoTonnies,  Philosophised  Monatshefte,  1893,  p.  3058. 


Emotion  and  Sentiment  331 

it  is  only  when  an  idea  gets  some  suggestive  force,  or  sanctions, 
or  social  setting,  that  it  is  influential  in  bringing  us  out  for 
its  reproduction.  Of  course  this  is  only  further  play  on 
definitions;  but  it  serves  to  indicate  the  real  elements  in 
the  situation.  When  Tonnies  says  that  obedience  comes 
first  and  imitation  afterwards,  he  refers  to  voluntary  imita- 
tion of  a  particular  action  which  the  child  has  already  learned 
to  do.  But  the  whole  theory  of  his  learning  must  go  before, 
and  it  could  hardly  be  said  that  the  child  learned  to  do  a  thing 
at  first  simply  by  being  commanded  to  do  it. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CONSCIOUS  IMITATION  (CONCLUDED) 
§  i.    Classification 

IT  is  possible,  on  the  basis  of  the  preceding  developments, 
to  lay  out  a  scheme  of  notions  and  terms  to  govern  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  whole  matter  of  imitation.  This  has  been  the 
'loose  joint'  in  many  discussions;  the  utter  lack  of  any  well- 
defined  limits  set  to  the  phenomena  in  question.  Tarde 
practically  claims  all  cases  of  organic  or  social  resemblance 
as  instances  of  imitation,  overlooking  the  truth,  as  one  of  his 
critics  takes  pains  to  point  out,  that  two  things  which  resemble 
each  other  may  be  common  effects  of  the  same  cause  !  Others 
are  disposed  to  consider  the  voluntary  imitation  of  an  action 
as  the  only  legitimate  case  of  imitation.  This,  we  have  seen, 
has  given  rise  to  great  confusion  among  psychologists.  We 
have  reason  to  think  that  volition  requires  a  finely  complex 
system  of  copy  elements,  whose  very  presence  can  be  ac- 
counted for  only  on  the  basis  of  earlier  organic,  or  certainly 
ideo-motor,  imitations.  Further,  it  is  the  lower,  less  voli- 
tional types  of  mind  that  simple  imitation  characterizes,  the 
undeveloped  child,  the  parrot,  the  idiot,  the  hypnotic,  the 
hysterical.  If  again  we  say,  with  yet  others,  that  imitation 
always  involves  a  presentation  or  image  of  the  situation  or 
object  imitated,  —  a  position  very  near  the  popular  use  of  the 
term,  —  then  we  have  great  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the 
absorption  and  reproduction  of  subconscious,  vaguely  present 
332 


Classification  333 

stimulations;  as,  for  example,  the  acquisition  of  facial  ex- 
pression, the  contagion  of  emotion,  the  growth  of  style  in  dress 
and  institutions  —  what  may  be  called  the  influence  of  the 
'psychic  atmosphere.' 

I  think  we  have  found  reason  from  the  analysis  above,  to 
hold  that  our  provisional  definition  of  imitation  is  just; 
an  imitative  reaction  is  one  which  tends  normally  to  main- 
tain or  repeat  its  own  stimulating  process.  This  is  what  we 
find  the  nervous  and  muscular  mechanism  suited  to,  and  this 
is  what  we  find  the  organism  doing  in  a  progressive  way  in  all 
the  types  of  function  which  we  have  passed  in  review.  If  this 
is  too  broad  a  definition,  then  what  we  have  traced  must  be 
given  some  other  name,  and  imitation  applied  to  any  more 
restricted  function  that  can  be  clearly  and  finally  marked  out. 
But  let  us  give  no  rein  to  the  fanciful  and  strained  analogies 
which  have  exercised  the  minds  of  certain  writers  on  im- 
itation. 

Adhering,  then,  to  the  definition  which  makes  of  imitation 
a 'circular'  process,  we  may  point  out  its  various 'kinds,'  ac- 
cording to  the  degree  in  which  a  reaction  of  the  general  type 
has,  by  complication,  abbreviation,  substitution,  inhibition, 
or  what  not,  departed  in  the  development  of  consciousness 
from  its  typical  simplicity.  We  find,  in  fact,  three  great  in- 
stances of  function,  all  of  which  conform  to  the  imitative  type. 
Two  of  these  have  already  been  put  in  evidence  in  detail; 
the  third  I  am  going  on  to  characterize  briefly  in  the  following 
section  under  the  phrase  'plastic  imitation.' 

First :  the  organic  reaction  which  tends  to  maintain,  repeat, 
reproduce,  its  own  stimulation,  be  it  simple  contractility, 
muscular  contraction,  or  selected  reactions  which  have  be- 
come habitual.  This  may  be  called  biological  or  organic 
imitation.  Under  this  head  fall  all  cases  lower  down  than  the 
conscious  picturing  of  copies ;  lower  down  in  the  sense  of  not 


334  Conscious  Imitation 

involving,  and  never  having  involved,  for  their  execution,  a 
conscious  sensory  or  intellectual  suggesting  stimulus,  with  the 
possibility  of  its  revival  as  a  memory.  On  the  nervous  side, 
such  imitations  may  be  called  subcortical;  and  in  view  of 
another  class  mentioned  below,  they  may  be  further  qualified 
as  primarily  subcortical. 

These  'biological'  imitations  are  evidently  first  in  order 
of  development,  and  represent  the  gains  or  accommoda- 
tions  of  the  organism  made  independently  of  the  conscious 
picturing  of  stimulations  and  adaptation  to  them.  They  serve 
for  the  accumulation  of  material  for  conscious  and  voluntary 
actions.  In  the  young  of  the  animals,  their  scope  is  very  lim- 
ited, because  of  the  complete  instinctive  equipment  which 
young  animals  bring  into  the  world;  but  in  human  infants 
they  play  an  important  part,  as  the  means  of  the  gradual  re- 
duction to  order  and  utility  of  the  diffused  motor  discharges  of 
the  new-born.  I  have  noted  its  presence  under  the  phrase 
'physiological'  suggestion  *  in  another  place.  It  is  under  this 
head  that  the  so-called  'selective'  function  of  the  nervous 
system  finds  its  first  illustration. 

Second :  we  pass  to  psychological,  conscious,  or  cortical 
imitations.  The  criterion  of  imitation  —  the  presence  of 
a  copy  to  be  aimed  at  —  is  here  fulfilled  in  the  form  of  con- 
scious presentations  and  images.  The  copy  becomes  con- 
sciously available  in  two  ways :  first,  as  presentation,  which 
the  imitative  reaction  seeks  to  continue  or  reproduce  (as 
the  imitation  of  words  heard,  movements  seen,  etc.);  and 
second,  as  memory.  In  this  latter  case  there  arises  com- 
plexity in  the  'copy  system,'  with  desire,  in  which  there  is 
consciousness  of  the  imitative  tendency  as  respects  an  agree- 
able memory  copy ;  and  with  the  persistence  of  such  a  copy, 
and  its  partial  repression  by  other  elements  of  memory,  comes 
»  Above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  2. 


Plastic  Imitation  335 

volition.  We  find,  accordingly,  two  kinds  of  psychological  or 
cortical  imitation,  which  I  have  called  respectively '  simple '  and 
'  persistent '  imitation.  Simple  imitation  is  the  sensori-motor 
or  ideo-motor  suggestion  which  tends  to  keep  itself  going  by 
reinstating  its  own  stimulation ;  and  persistent  imitation  is  the 
'try-try-again,'  experience  of  early  volition,  to  be  taken  up  in 
more  detail  below.1 

Third :  a  great  class  of  facts  which  we  may  well  designate 
by  the  term  'plastic'  or  'secondarily  subcortical'  imitations, 
to  which  more  particular  attention  may  now  be  given. 

§  2.  Plastic  Imitation 

This  phrase  is  used  to  cover  all  the  cases  of  reaction  or 
attitude,  toward  the  doings,  customs,  opinions  of  others, 
which  once  represented  more  or  less  conscious  adaptations 
either  in  race  or  in  personal  history,  but  which  have  become 
what  is  ordinarily  called  'secondary  automatic*  and  subcon- 
scious. With  them  are  all  the  less  well-defined  kinds  of 
response  which  we  make  to  the  actions,  suggestions,  etc.,  of 
others,  simply  from  the  habit  we  are  in,  by  heredity  and  ex- 
perience, or  conforming  to  social  'copy.'  Plastic  imitation 
represents  the  general  fact  of  that  normal  suggestibility  which 
is,  as  regards  personal  rapport,  the  very  soul  of  our  social 
relationships  with  one  another. 

These  cases  come  up  for  detailed  discussion  in  the  later 
volume.  They  serve  to  put  in  evidence  the  foundation  facts 
of  a  possible  psychology  of  masses,  crowds,  organized  bodies 
generally.  They  may  be  readily  explained  by  one  or  both 
of  two  principles  —  both  really  one,  that  of  Habit.  The 
principle  of  'lapsed  links,'  already  explained,  applies  to  cases 
of  conventional  conformity,  or  custom,  which  is  but  an 

1  Cf.  Chap.  XIII. 


336  Conscious  Imitation 

expression  for  abbreviated  processes  of  social  imitation.  This 
accounts  for  the  influence  of  the  old,  the  venerated,  the 
antique,  upon  mankind.  The  other  principle  is  the  applica- 
tion of  habit  itself  to  imitation,  whereby  absorption  by  imita- 
tion has  become  the  great  means,  the  first  resort  of  conscious- 
ness, in  the  presence  of  new  kinds  of  experience.  We  have 
become  used  to  getting  new  accommodations,  fine  outlets  for 
action  and  avenues  of  happiness,  by  taking  up  new  thoughts, 
beliefs,  fashions,  etc.  This  accounts  for  the  tyranny  of 
novelty  in  all  social  affairs.  So  in  these  two  principles, 
both  exhibitions  of  the  one  law  of  imitation,  we  reach  the 
two  great  forces  of  social  life,  conservatism  and  liberalism. 
So  we  find  under  this  heading  such  fundamental  facts  as  the 
social  phenomena  of  contagion,  fashion,  mob-law,  which 
Tarde  and  Sighele  so  well  emphasize,  the  imitation  of  facial 
and  emotional  expression,  moral  influence,  organic  sym- 
pathy, personal  rapport,  etc.,  all  matters  set  aside  for  later 
treatment.  The  term  'plastic'  serves  to  point  out  the  rather 
helpless  condition  of  the  person  who  imitates,  and  so  inter- 
prets in  his  own  action  the  more  intangible  influences  of  his 
estate  in  life. 

The  general  character  of  plastic  imitation  may  be  made 
clearer  if  we  give  attention  to  some  of  its  more  obscure  in- 
stances, and  assign  them  places  in  the  general  scheme  of 
development. 

The  social  instances  noticed  at  length  by  Tarde,  and 
summarized  under  so-called  'laws,'  are  easily  reduced  to  the 
more  general  principles  now  stated.  Tarde  enunciated  a 
law  based  on  the  fact  that  people  imitate  one  another  in 
thoughts  and  opinions  before  they  do  so  in  dress  and  customs, 
his  inference  being  that  '  imitation  proceeds  from  the  internal 
to  the  external.'  So  far  as  this  is  true  it  is  only  partially 
imitation.  Thoughts  and  opinions  are  imitated  because  they 


Plastic  Imitation  337 

are  most  important,  and  most  difficult  to  maintain  for  one- 
self. And  it  is  only  a  result  of  similar  thought  that  action 
should  be  similar,  without  in  all  cases  resorting  to  imitation 
to  account  for  this  last  similarity.  But  the  so-called  facts 
are  not  true.  The  relatively  trivial  and  external  things  are 
most  liable  to  be  seized  upon.  A  child  imitates  persons, 
and  what  he  copies  most  largely  are  the  personal  points  of 
evidence,  so  to  speak ;  the  boldest,  most  external  manifesta- 
tions, the  things  that  he  with  his  capacity  is  most  likely  to  see, 
not  the  inner  essential  mental  things.  It  is  only  as  he  grows 
to  make  a  conscious  distinction  between  thought  and  action 
that  he  gets  to  giving  the  former  a  higher  valuation.  And 
so  it  is  in  the  different  strata  of  society.  The  relative  force 
of  convention,  imitation  of  externals,  worship  of  custom, 
seems  to  have  an  inverse  relation  to  the  degree  of  develop- 
ment of  a  people. 

Again,  Tarde's  laws  relative  to  imitation  mode  and  imita- 
tion coutume  —  the  former  having  in  its  eye  the  new,  fashion- 
able, popular,  the  fad ;  the  latter,  the  old,  venerable,  custom- 
ary—  are  so  clearly  partial  statements  of  the  principles  of 
accommodation  and  habit,  as  they  get  application  in  the 
broader  genetic  ways  already  briefly  pointed  out,  that  it  is 
not  necessary  to  dwell  further  upon  them.1 

The  phenomena  of  hypnotism  illustrate  most  strikingly  the 
reality  of  this  kind  of  imitation  at  a  certain  stage  of  mental 
life.  Delboeuf  makes  it  probable  2  that  the  characteristic 
peculiarities  of  the  'stages'  of  the  Paris  school  are  due  to 
this  influence ;  and  the  wider  question  may  well  be  opened, 
whether  suggestion  generally,  as  understood  in  hypnotic 

1  Tarde's  other  principle,  that  'inferiors  imitate  superiors,'  is  clearly  a 
corollary  from  the  view  that  the  progressive  sense  of  personality  arises  through 
social  suggestion. 

3  Revue  Philosophique,  XXII.,  pp.  146  ff. 


338  Conscious  Imitation 

work,  might  not  be  better  expressed  by  some  formula  which 
recognizes  the  fundamental  sameness  of  all  reactions  —  nor- 
mal, pathological,  hypnotic,  degenerative  —  which  exhibit  the 
form  of  stimulus-repeating  or  'circular'  process  characteristic 
of  simple  imitation.  In  normal,  personal,  and  social  sugges- 
tion the  copy  elements  are,  in  part,  unrecognized ;  and  their 
reactions  are  subject  to  inhibition  and  blocking-off  by  the 
various  voluntary  and  complicated  tendencies  which  have 
the  floor.  In  sleep,  on  the  other  hand,  the  copy  elements 
are  largely  spontaneous  images,  thrown  up  by  the  play  of 
association,  or  stimulated  by  outside  trivialities,  and  all  so 
weak  that  while  action  follows  in  the  dream  persons,  it  does 
not  generally  follow  in  the  dreamer's  own  muscles.  But  in 
hypnotic  somnambulism,  the  copy  elements  are  from  the 
outside,  thrown  in ;  the  inner  fountains  are  blocked ;  action 
tends  to  follow  upon  idea,  whatever  it  is.  Even  the  idea  of 
no  action  is  acted  out  by  the  lethargic,  and  the  idea  of  fixed 
self-sustaining  action  by  the  cataleptic.1 

Further,  in  certain  cases  of  madness  (folie  d,  deux,  etc.)  the 
patient  responds  to  the  copy  which  has  been  learned  from  a 
single  person  only,  and  which  has  aided  in  the  production 
of  the  disease.2  In  all  these  cases,  the  peculiar  character  of 
which  is  the  performance,  under  conditions  commonly  called 
those  of  aboulia,8  of  reactions  which  require  the  muscular 

1  It  may  be  well  to  quote  Janet's  summary  of  his  determinations  of  the 
characteristic  features  of  general  catalepsy,  all  of  which  indicate  a  purely 
imitative  condition  of  consciousness,  Aid.  Psych.,  p.  55 :  "The  different  phe- 
nomena which  we  have  described  are  these ;  i.e.  the  continuation  of  an  atti- 
tude or  a  movement,  the  repetition  of  movements  which  have  been  seen  and 
of  sounds  which  have  been  heard,  the  harmonious  association  of  the  members 
and  of  their  movements."  Cf.  Janet  on  hysteria,  Arch,  de  Neurologic,  June, 
July,  1893. 

*  Cf.  Falret,  Etudes  diniques  sur  les  maladies  mentales  et  nerveuses,  p.  547. 

3  This  would  involve,  as  I  have  intimated  on  an  earlier  page,  a  doctrine 
which  holds  that  in  the  hypnotic  state,  there  is  inhibition  of  the  cortical  asso- 


How  to  Observe  Children's  Imitations 


339 


co-ordinations  usually  employed  by  voluntary  action,  we 
have  illustrations  of  '  plastic '  imitation.  On  the  pathological 
side,  we  find,  in  aphasic  patients  who  cannot  write  or  speak 
spontaneously,  but  who  still  can  copy  handwriting  and  speak 
after  another,  cases  which  illustrate  the  same  kind  of  defect, 
yet  in  which  the  defect  is  not  general,  but  rather  confined  to 
a  particular  group  of  reactions,  by  reason  of  a  circumscribed 
lesion. 

In  this  form  of  imitative  suggestion,  it  is  now  clear,  we 
have  a  second  kind  of  subcortical  reaction.  It  is  '  secondarily 
subcortical,'  in  contrast  with  the  organic  or  'primarily  sub- 
cortical'  imitations.  When  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view 
of  race  history,  it  gives  us  further  reason  for  rinding  in  imi- 
tation a  native  impulse.1 

§  3.  How  to  Observe  Children's  Imitations 2 

There  are  one  or  two  considerations  of  such  practical  im- 
portance to  all  those  who  wish  to  observe  cases  of  imitation 
by  children,  that  I  venture  to  throw  them  together,  only 

ciative  or  synthetic  function,  but  not  of  the  simple  cortical  sense  function. 
Cf.  Gurney's  remarks  on  Heidenhain's  explanation  of  'hypnotic  mimicry,' 
in  Mind,  1884,  p.  493. 

1  In  the  earlier  publication  of  some  of  the  positions  of  this  chapter  (Mind, 
January,  1894,  p.  52),  I  argued  against  Bain's  view,  in  his  Senses  and  Intellect, 
pp.  413  ff.  (3d  ed.),  of  imitation  as  in  all  cases  acquired.  In  his  fourth 
edition,  while  repeating  his  former  arguments,  he  nevertheless  so  weakens 
them  by  a  supplementary  note  that  I  find  his  concessions  practically  bringing 
him  into  accord  with  our  own  views.  The  note  is  as  follows  (loc.  cit.,  p.  441) : 
"As  in  other  connections,  I  have  to  qualify  the  foregoing  explanation  by 
admitting  the  possibility  and  the  fact  of  hereditary  transmission  in  at  least 
preparing  the  way  or  giving  facilities  for  the  operation  now  described.  .  .  . 
The  inheritance  of  tendencies  favouring  acquisition  may  decisively  contribute 
to  the  advancement  of  our  early  powers  of  imitation.  The  term  'instinct* 
would  thus  have  a  certain  fitness.  ..." 

*  See  the  Century  Magazine  for  December,  1894,  and  cf.  Royce's  article 
on  'The  Imitative  Functions'  in  the  same  magazine  for  May,  1894. 


34-O  Conscious  Imitation 

saying  by  way  of  introduction  that  they  all  follow  from  the 
general  statement  that  nothing  less  than  the  growth  of  per- 
sonality is  at  stake  in  the  method  and  matter  of  its  imita- 
tions; for  the  'self  is  largely  the  form  or  process  in  which 
the  personal  influences  surrounding  the  child  take  on  their 
new  individuality. 

1.  No  observations  are  of  much  importance  which  are  not 
accompanied  by  a  detailed  statement  of  the  personal  in- 
fluences which  have  affected  the  child.     This  is  the  more 
important  since  the  child  sees  few  persons,  and  sees  them 
constantly.     It  is  not  only  likely  —  it  is  inevitable  —  that  he 
make  up  his  personality,  under  limitations  of  heredity,  by 
imitation,  out  of  the  'copy'  set  in  the  actions,  temper,  emo- 
tions, of  the  persons  who  build  around  him  the  social  en- 
closure of  his  childhood.     It  is  only  necessary  to  watch  a 
two-year-old  closely  to  see  what  members  of  the  family  are 
giving  him  his  personal  'copy'  — to  find  out  whether  he  sees 
his  mother  constantly  and  his  father  seldom;    whether  he 
plays  much  with  other  children,  and  what  their  dispositions 
are,  to  a  degree ;  whether  he  is  growing  to  be  a  person  of 
subjugation,  equality,  or  tyranny ;  whether  he  is  assimilating 
the  elements  of  some  low  unorganized  social  content  from 
his  foreign  nurse.     For,  to  use  Leibnitz's  term,  the  boy  or 
girl  is  a  social  'monad,'  a  little  world,  which  reflects  the  whole 
system  of  influences  coming  to  stir  its  sensibility.     And  just 
in  so  far  as  his  sensibilities  are  stirred,  he  imitates,  and  forms 
habits  of  imitating ;   and  habits  ?  —  they  are  character ! 

2.  A  point  akin  to  the  first  is  this:    every  observation 
should  describe  with  great  accuracy  the  child's  relation  to 
other  children.     Has  he  brothers  or  sisters ;    how  many  of 
each,  and  of  what  age?    Does  he  sleep  in  the  same  bed  or 
room  with  them?     Do  they  play  much  with  one  another 
alone  ?    The  reason  is  very  evident.    An  only  child  has  only 


How  to  Observe  Children  s  Imitations     341 

adult  'copy.'  He  cannot  interpret  his  father's  actions,  or 
his  mother's,  oftentimes.  He  imitates  very  blindly.  He 
lacks  the  more  childish  example  of  a  brother  or  sister  near 
himself  in  age.  And  this  difference  is  of  very  great  impor- 
tance to  his  development.  He  lacks  the  stimulus,  for  ex- 
ample, of  games,  in  which  personification  is  a  direct  tutor  to 
self-hood,  as  is  taught  elsewhere.1  And  while  he  becomes 
precocious  in  some  lines  of  instruction,  he  fails  in  wealth  of 
imagination,  in  variety  of  fancy.  The  dramatic,  in  his  sense 
of  social  situations,  is  largely  hidden.  It  is  a  very  great  mis- 
take to  isolate  children.  One  alone  is  perhaps  the  worse, 
but  two  alone  are  subject  to  the  other  element  of  social 
danger  which  I  may  mention  next. 

3.  Observers  should  report  with  especial  care  all  cases  of 
unusually  close  relationship  between  children  in  youth,  such 
as  childish  favouritism,  'platonic  friendships,'  'chumming,' 
in  school  or  home,  etc.  We  have  in  these  facts  —  and  there 
is  a  very  great  variety  of  them  —  an  exaggeration  of  the 
social  or  imitative  tendency,  a  narrowing  down  of  the  per- 
sonal suggestive  sensibility  to  a  peculiar  line  of  well-formed 
influences.  It  has  been  little  studied  by  writers  either  on 
the  genesis  of  social  emotion  or  on  the  practice  of  education. 
To  be  sure,  teachers  are  alive  to  the  pros  and  cons  of  allow- 
ing children  and  students  to  room  together;  but  it  is  with 
a  view  to  the  possibility  of  direct  immoral  or  unwholesome 
contagion.  This  danger  is  certainly  real;  but  we,  as  psy- 
chological observers,  and  above  all  as  teachers  and  leaders, 
of  our  children,  must  go  even  deeper  than  that.  Consider, 
for  example,  the  possible  influence  of  a  school  chum  and 
room-mate  upon  a  girl  in  her  teens ;  for  this  is  only  an  evident 
case  of  what  all  children  thus  isolated  are  subject  to.  A 
sensitive  nature,  a  girl  whose  very  life  is  a  branch  of  a  social 

1  See  Thought  and  Things,  Vol.  I.,  Chap.  VI.,  §§  6  ff. 


342  Conscious  Imitation 

tree,  is  placed  in  a  new  environment,  to  engraft  upon  the 
members  of  her  mutilated  self  —  her  very  personality ;  it  is 
nothing  less  than  that  —  utterly  new  channels  of  supply. 
The  only  safety  possible,  the  only  way  to  conserve  the  lessons 
of  her  past,  apart  from  the  veriest  chance,  and  to  add  to  the 
structure  of  her  present  character,  lies  in  securing  for  her  the 
greatest  possible  variety  of  social  influences.  Instead  of  this, 
she  meets,  eats,  walks,  talks,  lies  down  at  night,  and  rises  in 
the  morning,  with  one  other  person,  a  'copy'  set  before  her, 
as  immature  in  all  likelihood  as  herself,  or,  if  not  so,  yet  a 
single  personality,  put  there  to  wrap  around  her  growing 
self  the  confining  cords  of  unassimilated  and  foreign  habit. 
Above  all  things,  fathers,  mothers,  teachers,  elders,  give  the 
children  room !  They  need  all  that  they  can  get,  and  their 
personalities  will  grow  to  fill  it.  Give  them  plenty  of  com- 
panions, fill  their  lives  with  variety,  —  variety  is  the  soul  of 
originality,  and  its  only  source  of  supply.  The  ethical  life 
itself,  the  boy's,  the  girl's,  conscience,  is  born  in  the  stress  of 
the  conflicts  of  suggestion,  bom  right  out  of  his  imitative 
hesitations;  and  just  this  is  the  analogy  which  he  must 
assimilate  and  depend  upon  in  his  own  conflicts  for  self- 
control  and  social  continence.  So  impressively  true  is  this 
from  the  human  point  of  view,  that  in  my  opinion  —  formed, 
it  is  true,  from  the  very  few  data  accessible  on  such  points, 
still  a  positive  opinion  —  children  should  never  be  allowed, 
after  infancy,  to  room  regularly  together ;  special  friendships 
of  a  close  exclusive  kind  should  be  discouraged  or  broken  up, 
except  when  under  the  immediate  eye  of  the  wise  parent  or 
guardian ;  and  even  when  allowed,  these  relationships  should, 
in  all  cases,  be  used  to  entrain  the  sympathetic  and  moral 
sentiments  into  a  wider  field  of  social  exercise. 

4.  The  remainder  of  this  section  must  be  devoted  to  the 
further  emphasis  of  the  need  of  close  observation  of  chil- 


How  to  Observe  Children's  Imitations      343 

dren's  games,  especially  those  which  may  be  best  described 
as  'society  games.'  All  those  who  have  given  even  casual 
observation  to  the  doings  of  the  nursery  have  been  impressed 
with  the  extraordinary  fertility  of  the  child  mind,  from  the 
second  year  onward,  in  imagining  and  plotting  social  and 
dramatic  situations.  It  has  not  been  so  evident,  however, 
to  these  casual  observers,  nor  to  many  really  more  skilled, 
that  they  were  observing  in  these  fancy-plays  the  putting  to- 
gether anew  of  fragments,  or  larger  pieces,  of  their  own 
mental  history.  But  here,  in  these  games,  we  see  the  actual 
use  which  our  children  make  of  the  personal  'copy'  material 
which  they  have  got  from  you  and  me.  If  a  man  study  these 
games  patiently  in  his  own  children,  and  analyze  them  out, 
he  gradually  sees  emerge  from  the  child's  inner  consciousness 
its  picture  of  the  boy's  own  father,  whom  he  aspires  to  be 
like,  and  whose  actions  he  seeks  to  generalize  and  apply 
anew.  The  picture  is  poor,  for  the  child  takes  only  what  he 
is  sensible  to.  And  it  does  seem  often,  as  Sighele  patheti- 
cally notices  on  a  large  social  scale,  and  as  the  Westminster 
divines  have  urged  without  due  sense  of  the  pathetic  and 
home-coming  point  of  it,  that  he  takes  more  of  the  bad  in 
us  for  reproduction  than  of  the  good.  But  be  this  as  it 
may,  what  we  give  him  is  all  he  gets.  Heredity  does  not 
stop  with  birth ;  it  is  then  only  beginning.  And  the  pity  of 
it  is  that  this  element  of  heredity,  this  reproduction  of  the 
fathers  in  the  children,  which  might  be  used  to  redeem  the 
new-forming  personality  from  the  heritage  of  past  common- 
ness or  impurity,  is  simply  left  to  take  its  course  for  the 
further  establishing  and  confirmation  of  it.  Was  there  ever 
a  group  of  school  children  who  did  not  leave  the  real  school 
to  make  a  play  school,  erecting  a  throne  for  one  of  their 
number  to  sit  on  and  'take  off'  the  teacher?  Was  there  ever 
a  child  who  did  not  play  'church,'  and  force  her  father  if 


344  Conscious  Imitation 

possible  into  the  pulpit  ?  Were  there  ever  children  who  did 
not  'buy'  things  from  fancied  stalls  in  every  corner  of  the 
nursery,  when  they  had  once  seen  an  elder  drive  a  trade  in 
the  market  ?  The  point  is  this :  the  child's  personality  grows ; 
growth  is  always  by  action ;  he  clothes  upon  himself  the  scenes 
of  his  life  and  acts  them  out;  so  he  grows  in  what  he  is, 
what  he  understands,  and  what  he  is  able  to  perform. 

In  order  to  be  of  direct  service  to  observers  of  games  of  this 
character,  I  shall  now  give  a  short  account  of  an  observa- 
tion of  the  kind  made  a  few  weeks  ago  —  one  of  the  simplest 
of  many  actual  situations  which  my  two  little  girls,  Helen  and 
Elizabeth,  have  acted  out  together.  It  is  a  very  common- 
place case,  a  game,  the  elements  of  which  are  evident  in 
their  origin ;  but  I  choose  this  rather  than  one  more  complex, 
since  observers  are  usually  not  psychologists,  and  they  find 
the  elementary  the  more  instructive. 

On  May  2,  I  was  sitting  on  the  porch  alone  with  the  chil- 
dren —  the  two  mentioned  above,  aged  respectively  four  and 
a  half  and  two  and  a  half  years.  Helen,  the  elder,  told  Eliza- 
beth that  she  was  her  little  baby;  that  is,  Helen  became 
'mama,'  and  Elizabeth  'baby.'  The  younger  responded  by 
calling  her  sister  'mama,'  and  the  play  began. 

"You  have  been  asleep,  baby.  Now  it  is  time  to  get  up," 
said  mama.  Baby  rose  from  the  floor,  —  first  falling  down 
in  order  to  rise,  —  was  seized  upon  by  'mama,'  taken  to  the 
railing  to  an  imaginary  wash-stand,  and  her  face  washed  by 
rubbing.  Her  articles  of  clothing  were  then  named  in  imagi- 
nation, and  put  on,  one  by  one,  in  the  most  detailed  and  in- 
teresting fashion.  During  all  this  'mama'  kept  up  a  stream 
of  baby  talk  to  her  infant :  "  Now  your  stockings,  my  darling ; 
now  your  skirt,  sweetness  —  or,  no  —  not  yet  —  your  shoes 
first,"  etc.,  etc.  Baby  acceded  to  all  the  details  with  more 
than  the  docility  which  real  infants  usually  show.  When  this 


How  to  Observe  Children  s  Imitations      345 

was  done,  "Now  we  must  go  tell  papa  good-morning,  dearie," 
said  mama.  "Yes,  mama,"  came  the  reply;  and  hand  in 
hand  they  started  to  find  papa.  I,  the  spectator,  carefully 
read  my  newspaper,  thinking,  however,  that  the  reality  of 
papa,  seeing  that  he  was  so  much  in  evidence,  would  break  in 
upon  the  imagined  situation.  But  not  so.  Mama  led  her 
baby  directly  past  me  to  the  end  of  the  piazza,  to  a  column 
in  the  corner.  "There's  papa,"  said  mama;  "now  tell  him 
good -morning."  —  "Good-morning,  papa;  I  am  very  well," 
said  baby,  bowing  low  to  the  column.  "That's  good,"  said 
mama,  in  a  gruff,  low  voice,  which  caused  in  the  real  papa  a 
thrill  of  amused  self-consciousness  most  difficult  to  contain. 
"Now  you  must  have  your  breakfast,"  said  mama.  The  seat 
of  a  chair  was  made  a  breakfast-table,  the  baby's  feigned  bib 
put  on,  and  her  porridge  carefully  administered,  with  all  the 
manner  of  the  nurse  who  usually  directs  their  breakfast. 
"Now"  (after  the  meal,  which  suddenly  became  dinner 
instead  of  breakfast),  "you  must  take  your  nap,"  said  mama. 
"  No,  mama ;  I  don't  want  to,"  said  baby.  "  But  you  must." 
—  "No;  you  be  baby,  and  take  the  nap."  —  "But  all  the 
other  children  have  gone  to  sleep,  dearest,  and  the  doctor  says 
you  must,"  said  mama.  This  convinced  baby,  and  she  lay 
down  on  the  floor.  "But  I  haven't  undressed  you."  So 
then  came  all  the  detail  of  undressing;  and  mama  carefully 
covered  her  up  on  the  floor  with  a  light  shawl,  saying,  "Spring 
is  coming  now ;  that'll  be  enough.  Now  shut  your  eyes,  and 
go  to  sleep."  —  "But  you  haven't  kissed  me,  mama,"  said 
the  little  one.  "Oh,  of  course,  my  darling!"  —  so  a  long 
siege  of  kissing !  Then  baby  closed  her  eyes  very  tight,  while 
mama  went  on  tiptoe  away  to  the  end  of  the  porch.  "  Don't 
go  away,  mama,"  said  baby.  "No;  mama  wouldn't  leave 
her  darling,"  came  the  reply. 

So  this  went  on.    The  nap  over,  a  walk  was  proposed, 


346  Conscious  Imitation 

hats  put  on,  etc.,  the  mama  exercising  great  care  and  solici- 
tude for  her  baby.  One  further  incident  to  show  this :  when 
the  baby's  hat  was  put  on  —  the  real  hat  —  mama  tied  the 
strings  rather  tight.  "Oh!  you  hurt,  mama,"  said  baby. 
"No ;  mama  wouldn't  draw  the  strings  too  tight.  Let  mama 
kiss  it.  There,  is  that  better,  my  darling?"  — all  comically 
true  to  a  certain  sweet  maternal  tenderness  that  I  had  no 
difficulty  in  tracing. 

Now  in  such  a  case,  what  is  to  be  reported,  of  course,  is  the 
facts.  Yet  knowledge  of  more  than  the  facts  is  necessary, 
as  I  have  said  above,  in  order  to  get  the  full  psychological 
lesson.  We  need  just  the  information  which  concerns  the 
rest  of  the  family,  and  the  social  influences  of  the  children's 
lives.  I  recognized  at  once  every  phrase  which  the  chil- 
dren used  in  this  play,  where  they  got  it,  what  it  meant  in  its 
original  context,  and  how  far  its  meaning  had  been  modified 
in  this  process  which  I  have  called  'social  heredity.'  But  as 
that  story  is  reported  to  strangers  who  have  no  knowledge  of 
the  children's  social  antecedents,  how  much  beyond  the 
mere  facts  of  imitation  and  personification  do  they  get  from 
it?  And  how  much  the  more  is  this  true  when  we  examine 
those  complex  games  of  the  nursery  which  show  the  brilliant 
fancy  for  situation  and  drama  of  the  wide-awake  four-year- 
old? 

Yet  we  psychologists  are  free  to  interpret;  and  how  rich 
the  lessons  even  from  such  a  simple  scene  as  this !  As  for 
Helen,  what  could  be  a  more  direct  lesson  —  a  lived -out  exer- 
cise in  sympathy,  in  altruistic  self-denial,  in  the  healthy  ele- 
vation of  her  sense  of  self  to  the  dignity  of  kindly  offices, 
in  the  sense  of  responsibility  and  agency,  in  the  stimulus  to 
original  effort  and  the  designing  of  means  to  ends  —  and 
all  of  it  with  the  best  sense  of  the  objectivity  which  is  quite 
lost  in  wretched  self-consciousness  in  us  adults,  when  we 


How  to  Observe  Children's  Imitations      347 

personate  other  characters?  What  could  further  all  this 
highest  mental  growth  better  than  the  game  by  which  the  les- 
sons of  her  mother's  daily  life  are  read  into  the  child's  little 
self  ?  And  then,  in  the  case  of  Elizabeth,  certain  things  ap- 
pear. She  obeys  without  command  or  sanction,  she  takes  in 
from  her  sister  the  elements  of  personal  suggestion  in  their 
simpler  childish  forms;  and  certainly  such  scenes,  repeated 
every  day  with  such  variation  of  detail,  must  give  something 
of  the  sense  of  variety  and  social  equality  which  real  life  after- 
wards confirms  and  proceeds  upon ;  and  lessons  of  the  oppo- 
site character  are  learned  by  the  same  process. 

And  all  this  exercise  of  fancy  must  strengthen  the  imagina- 
tive faculty.  The  prolonged  situations,  maintained  some- 
times whole  days,  or  possibly  weeks,  give  strength  to  the 
imagination  and  train  the  attention.  And  I  think,  also,  that 
the  sense  of  essential  reality,  and  its  distinction  from  the 
unreal,  the  merely  imagined,  is  helped  by  this  sort  of  symbolic 
representation.  But  it  has  its  dangers  also  —  very  serious 
ones.  And  possibly  the  best  service  of  observation  just  now 
is  to  gather  the  facts  with  a  view  to  the  proper  recognition  and 
avoidance  of  the  dangers. 

Finally,  I  may  be  allowed  a  word  to  interested  parents. 
You  can  be  of  no  use  whatever  to  psychologists  —  to  say 
nothing  of  the  actual  damage  you  may  be  to  the  children  — 
unless  you  know  your  babies  through  and  through.  Especially 
the  fathers !  They  are  willing  to  study  everything  else.  They 
know  every  corner  of  the  house  familiarly,  and  what  is  done 
in  it,  except  the  nursery.  A  man  labours  for  his  children  ten 
hours  a  day,  gets  his  life  insured  for  their  support  after  his 
death,  and  yet  he  lets  their  mental  growth,  the  formation  of 
their  characters,  the  evolution  of  their  personality,  go  on  by 
absorption  —  if  no  worse  —  from  common,  vulgar,  imported 
and  changing,  often  immoral,  attendants!  Plato  said  the 


348  Conscious  Imitation 

state  should  train  the  children;  and  added  that  the  wisest 
man  should  rule  the  state.  This  is  to  say  that  the  wisest  man 
should  tend  his  children !  Hugo  gives  us,  in  Jean  Valjean 
and  Cosette,  a  picture  of  the  true  paternal  relationship.  We 
hear  a  certain  group  of  studies  called  the  humanities,  and  it 
is  right.  But  the  best  school  in  the  humanities  for  every 
man  is  in  his  own  house.1 

1  In  the  detailed  treatment  of  '  genetic  logic '  in  Thouglrd  and.  Things,  Vol. 
I.,  Chap.  VI., the  make-believe  or  '  semblant'  mode  of  construction  is  found 
to  be  an  essential  stage  in  the  development  of  knowledge. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  VOLITION 

§  i.   Description  and  Analysis  of  Volition 

IN  earlier  chapters  I  have  endeavoured  to  trace  the  develop- 
ment of  some  aspects  of  the  child's  active  life  up  to  the  rise  of 
volition.  The  transition  from  the  involuntary  class  of  mus- 
cular reactions  to  which  the  general  word  'suggestion'  applies, 
to  the  performance  of  actions  foreseen  and  intended,  occurs, 
as  has  been  intimated,  through  the  persistence  and  repetition 
of  imitative  suggestions.  The  distinction  between  simple 
imitation  and  persistent  imitation  has  been  made  and  illus- 
trated in  an  earlier  place.1  Now,  in  saying  that  volition  — 
the  clearly  conscious  phenomenon  of  will  —  arises  historically 
on  the  basis  of  persistent  imitation,  what  I  mean  is  this :  that 
the  normal  child's  first  exhibition  of  volition  is  found  in  its 
repeated  efforts  to  imitate  something;  and  what  it  imitates,  its 
1  copy,'  is  of  two  great  kinds:  (i)  something  external,  such  as 
movements  seen  and  noises  heard;  and  (2)  something  internal, 
arising  in  its  own  memory,  imagination,  or  thought.  I  shall 
consider,  first,  the  rise  of  volition  by  imitation  of  external 
copies,  —  since  this  comes  first  in  natural  history,  or  phylo- 
genesis, —  and  then  consider  the  modifications  which  are 
necessary  when  we  come  to  consider  memory  and  imagina- 
tion as  setting  copies  for  imitation  to  the  individual  child. 

An  adequate  analysis  of  will,  with  reference  to  the  fiat  of 

1  Above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  4. 
349 


350  The  Origin  of  Volition 

volition,  reveals  three  great  factors  for  which  a  theory  of  the 
origin  of  this  function  should  provide.  These  three  elements 
of  the  voluntary  process  are  desire,  deliberation,  and  effort. 
Desire  is  distinguished  from  impulse  by  its  intellectual  qual- 
ity, i.e.  by  the  fact  that  it  always  has  reference  to  a  presen- 
tation or  pictured  object.  This  distinguishes  desire  from 
that  formidable  and  refractory  thing  which  is  called  '  restless- 
ness.' Organic  impulses  may  pass  into  desires,  when  their 
objects  become  conscious.  Further,  desire  implies  lack  of  sat- 
isfaction of  the  impulse  on  which  it  rests  —  a  degree  of  in- 
hibition, thwarting,  unfulfilment.  Put  more  generally,  these 
two  characteristics  of  desire  are :  (i)  a  pictured  object  sug- 
gesting associated  experiences  which  it  does  not  suffice  to 
realize,  and  (2)  an  incipient  motor  reaction  which  the  imaged 
object  stimulates  but  does  not  discharge.1  Analysis  shows, 
I  think,  that  these  two  points  are  equally  important,  because 
correlative.  Without  associated  experiences,  the  object 
would  give  rise  only  to  simple  ideo-motor  suggestion,  as  in  the 
cases  already  cited,  and  in  hypnotic  suggestion;  but  these 
associated  experiences  lack  body,  satisfying  quality,  the 
'reality  coefficient.'  In  Pauline  phrase,  'What  a  man  hath 
why  doth  he  yet  hope  for?'  But  the  mere  picturing  of 
objects  with  their  associates,  of  whatever  kind,  does  not  con- 
stitute desire.  Desire  is  a  tendency-state,  an  incipient  action, 
a  condition  of  high  potential,  which,  however,  does  not  dis- 
charge itself.  For  example,  —  to  take  an  illustration  from 
our  main  subject,  the  infant,  —  the  child  continues  to  cry 
for  an  apple  which  his  nurse  refuses  to  give  him ;  the  nurse's 
prohibition  has  not  the  requisite  inhibitive  force  to  obliterate 
the  motor  tensions  aroused  by  the  pictured  fruit  and  its  asso- 
ciated pleasures.  But  the  child's  father  comes  into  the  room, 

1  See  my  Handbook  oj  Psychology,  II.,  Chap.  XIV.,  §  2  (pp.  324  ff.),  for 
the  general  analysis  of  desire. 


Description  and  Analysis  of  Volition         351 

and  says,  'No!'  Forthwith  the  child  gives  it  up,  satisfies 
himself  with  other  objects,  and  no  longer  shows  the  motor 
tendencies  and  expressions  which  indicate  desire.  Yet  in  this 
latter  case,  the  object-picture  and  its  suggested  pleasures  are 
still  present  just  the  same.  Real  desire  is  gone,  I  think,  as 
completely  as  in  the  hypnotic  trance,  when  a  new  command 
turns  the  patient's  motor  responses  into  new  channels.  I  do 
not  desire  the  millions  of  my  neighbour,  nor  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Lords ;  my  sense  that  such  things  are  unattainable 
inhibits  all  active  attitude.  But,  for  the  opposite  reason,  I 
do  desire  an  increase  in  my  salary,  and  a  seat  on  the  bench 
where  competent  psychologists  hold  counsel  together. 

These  prerequisites  of  desire  allowed,  it  becomes  relatively 
easy  to  fix  the  rise  of  the  phenomenon  in  the  infant's  growth. 
Evidently,  memory  must  be  well  developed,  and  the  clear 
defining  of  a  mental  picture,  that  it  may  be  an  appropriate 
nucleus  to  a  particular  desire.  This  defining,  it  is  further 
evident,  must  be  sought,  first,  in  connection  with  the  senses 
whose  so-called  '  presentative '  element  is  earliest  and  most 
pronounced.  Sight  and  sound  memories  fulfil  this  require- 
ment first ;  they  are  most  clear-cut  and  uncomplicated  with 
other  sense  pictures.  Further,  muscular  memories  are  among 
the  earliest  with  which  they  become  associated,  some  such 
connections  being  possibly  congenital.  And  the  necessary 
associations  of  pleasure,  which  powerfully  impel  to  desire, 
are  pungent  and  strong  in  the  case  of  muscular  sensations. 

I  think  it  is  in  connection  with  sight  and  hearing  memories 
of  pleasant  experiences,  accordingly,  as  they  are  associated 
with  pleasurable  or  not  very  painful  movements,  that  desire 
is  to  be  first  looked  for  normally.  Of  auditory  memories, 
the  voice  of  mother  or  nurse,  and  sounds  associated  with  the 
preparation  of  food,  etc.,  become  evident  stimulations  to 
lively  anticipatory  reactions  which  express  desire.  On  the 


352  The  Origin  of  Volition 

side  of  vision,  again,  similar  indications  are  abundant,  and 
extend  back  yet  earlier  in  the  infant's  mental  history. 

The  theory  which  connects  desire  fundamentally  with 
appetite  and  thirst  for  pleasure  can  be  defended,  I  think,  only 
when  supplemented  from  the  side  of  simple  ideo-motor  sug- 
gestion. It  is  clear  that  appetite  is  at  first  organic,  purely 
sensational ;  it  has  no  objective  terminus.1  And  it  is  only  as 
appetites  get  tied  to  some  well-defined  visual  or  auditory  mem- 
ory picture,  that  the  unrest  of  hunger  and  thirst  becomes  the 
desire  for  food  and  drink.  But  all  desires  are  not  thus 
founded  in  appetite,  nor  aimed  at  pleasure.  It  is  only  going 
a  step  farther,  therefore,  in  the  recognition  of  the  essentials 
of  the  state  called  desire  in  normal  and  typical  cases,  to  say, 
as  I  have  said  elsewhere,2  that  "desire  takes  its  rise  in  visual 
(or  auditory)  suggestion,  and  develops  under  its  lead."  3 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  extremely  likely 
that  the  first  cases  of  real  desire  in  the  infant's  consciousness 
find  their  expression  in  the  movements  of  its  hands  toward 
or  from  objects  which  it  sees.  We  have  seen  that  hand -move- 
ments are  the  natural  outlets  for  clear  differences  in  conscious- 
ness. As  soon  as  there  is  clear  visual  presentation  of  objects 
we  find  impulsive  muscular  reactions  directed  toward  them, 
at  first  in  an  excessively  crude  fashion,  but  becoming  rapidly 
refined.  These  movements  are  free  and  uninhibited  — sim- 
ple sensori-motor  suggestive  reactions.  But  we  have  seen, 
in  the  experiments  described  above,  that  this  vain  and  ran- 
dom grasping,  which  prevailed  up  to  about  the  sixth  month, 
tended  to  disappear  rapidly  in  the  two  subsequent  months  — 
just  about  the  time  of  the  rise  of  imitation.  During  the 

1  The  cries  and  other  movements  which  are  associated  with  appetite  are 
largely  organic  pain  reflexes. 

2  Handbook,  II.,  p.  324. 

8  Of  course  with  blind  or  deaf  children  other  senses  supply  the  suggestions. 


Description  and  Analysis  of  Volition      353 

eighth  month,  my  child,  H.,  would  not  grasp  at  highly- 
coloured  objects  more  than  sixteen  inches  distant,  her  reach- 
ing distance  being  ten  to  twelve  inches.  This  training  of 
impulse  is  evidently  an  association  of  muscular  sensations 
from  the  arm  with  visual  experiences  of  distance.  The  sug- 
gested reaction  becomes  inhibited  in  a  growing  degree  by 
counteracting  nervous  processes  which  probably  began  their 
influence  much  earlier.  Here  are  the  conditions  necessary  to 
the  rise  of  desire.  It  is  a  typical  instance,  at  any  rate,  whether 
or  not  it  be,1  as  I  think,  the  first  instance,  of  the  full  jactoi  desire. 
The  further  requisite  to  volition,  as  analysis  gives  it,  is 
'deliberation.'  The  phenomenon  called  'deliberative  sug- 
gestion' has  already  been  described  and  illustrated  from 
child-life.1  The  line  of  cleavage  between  such  suggestion  and 
the  deliberation  of  volition  lies,  I  think,  just  where  that  be- 
tween impulse  and  desire  lies.  The  characteristic  thing 
about  desire  is  the  advanced  representative  process  it  in- 
volves —  the  third-level  process  on  the  brain  side  —  with  the 
complex  sensori-motor  system  which  is  the  basis  of  various 
inhibitions.  So  in  deliberation,  the  complexity  actually 
present  in  deliberative  suggestion  passes  up  to  a  higher  level. 
The  elements  of  it  became  clearly  pictured,  co-ordinated  in  the 
attention,  and  estimated,  as  to  relative  suitableness  for  ex- 
ecution. It  is  a  vivid,  clear  thing  in  consciousness,  this  delib- 
eration, both  as  to  the  elements  of  representation  and  as  to  the 

1  Of  course,  like  all  other  dividing  lines  in  consciousness,  such  a  line  of 
division  is  not  well  marked.  It  is  impossible  to  say  just  how  far  the  dumb, 
unpictured,  organic  ends  in  cases  of  appetite,  unrest,  muscular  discomfort, 
etc.,  must  crystallize  into  outline  and  objective  reference  to  be  no  longer 
impulse,  but  desire.  The  needs  of  our  terminology  rather  than  the  mental 
facts  themselves  lead  to  such  divisions.  Sight  and  sound  act  first  only  be- 
cause and  when  they  are  first  as  memory  objects ;  if  they  are  absent,  then  less 
clear  mental  pictures  get  to  be  desired,  of  course. 

1  Above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  3. 

2  A 


354  The  Origin  of  Volition 

motor  tendencies  which  they  represent.  On  the  contrary, 
the  child's  mind,  in  'deliberative  suggestion,'  is  analogous  to 
the  state  of  conflicting  impulse,  motor  jerkiness,  unreason- 
able caprice,  seen  also  in  certain  pathological  subjects,  who 
are  victims  of  dboulia  in  any  of  its  forms.  The  essential 
difference  —  and  it  is  essential,  I  think,  functionally  con- 
sidered —  is  that  the  deliberation  of  volition  involves  at- 
tention at  its  normal  gait,  and  the  motor  co-ordinations  which 
are  characteristic  of  it  and  of  its  seat  among  the  highest  brain 
relationships.  Now  the  resolution  of  this  conscious  com- 
plexity of  motives,  as  found  in  deliberation,  gives  another  and 
the  culminating  characteristic  of  volition  i.e.  effort. 

Effort,  in  all  its  forms,  from  simple  consent,  acceptance, 
ratification,  of  an  action  as  good  or  as  real,  to  the  violent 
exertion  of  despair,  or  passion,  —  effort  arises  just  after 
deliberation,  and  puts  an  end  to  it.  We  need  not  go  into  the 
vexed  question  of  the  meaning  of  effort,  its  basis,  etc. ;  all  we 
need  here  is  its  natural  history.  And  everybody  will  admit 
that  it  puts  an  end  to  mental  hesitation  and  deliberation,  it 
settles  things  so  far  as  one's  attitude  is  concerned,  and  issues 
in  action  so  far  as  inhibiting  conditions  will  permit.  The 
sense  of  effort,  then,  seems  to  accompany,  or  indeed  to  be,  the 
passage  of  consciousness  into  a  state  of  motor  monoideism, 
or  strong  attention,  after  the  perplexities  of  deliberation.  It 
arises  just  when  an  end  is  put  to  motor  plurality  by  synthesis 
or  co-ordination.1 

§  2.   The  Typical  Case  of  the  Rise  oj  Volition  in  the  Child 

These  three  characters  of  volition  —  desire,  attentive 
deliberation,  effort  —  find  their  typical  fulfilment,  I  think, 

1  Cf.  the  full  treatment  of  the  appropriate  chapters  of  James,  Princ.  oj 
Psychol.,  II.,  Chap.  XXVI.,  and  Baldwin,  Handbook  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II., 
especially  Chap.  XV.,  §  i,  and  Chap.  XVI.,  §  i. 


Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child  355 

in  the  'try-try-again'  experience  of  infants;  and  the  evident 
case  of  this,  seen  in  the  persistent  imitation  of  sounds  heard 
and  movements  seen,  the  'external  copies'  spoken  of  above, 
may  be  now  considered. 

We  have  seen  that  sight  and  hearing,  in  direct  association 
with  muscular  sensation,  supply  the  materials  for  reproduc- 
tion largely  at  this  early  period ;  and  it  has  now  been  urged 
that  we  are  to  look  to  imitation,  considered  as  a  type  of  reaction, 
as  the  principal  method  of  adjustment  of  the  organism  to 
its  surroundings.  Independently,  however,  of  this  last  pre- 
sumption,— indeed,  in  my  own  mental  progress  it  was  the  facts 
of  early  volition  that  led  me  to  the  broader  view  of  imitation 
in  mental  development, — the  direct  evidence  on  the  point 
is  quite  convincing. 

Persistent  Imitation  and  Volition.  —  In  persistent  imita- 
tion we  have  an  advance  on  simple  imitation  in  two  ways : 
(i)  A  comparison  of  the  first  result  produced  by  the  child 
(movement,  sound)  with  the  suggesting  image  or  'copy' 
imitated.  This  is  nascent  deliberation.  For,  when  the 
dynamogenic  influences  of  these  presentations  are  taken 
into  account,  we  find  a  conflict  on  the  motor  side.  The 
old  hand-movement,  let  us  say,  associated  with  the  'copy,' 
as  it  has  been  established  by  simple  imitation,  instinct,  or 
impulse,  does  not  adequately  represent  the  influence  now 
exerted  by  the  'copy,'  plus  that  of  the  new  optical  picture 
created  by  the  reaction  itself.  The  dynamogenic  condition 
is  now  complex.  This  gives  rise  to  the  state  of  dissatisfac- 
tion, motor  restlessness,  which  is  desire,  best  described  in 
this  connection  by  the  phrase  'will-stimulus';  (2)  the  out- 
burst of  this  complex  motor  condition  in  a  new  reaction, 
accompanied  in  consciousness  by  the  attainment  of  a  mono- 
ideistic  state  —  the  'end  in  view' — and  the  feeling  of  effort. 
Here,  then,  in  persistent  imitation  we  have,  thus  briefly  put, 


356  The  Origin  of  Volition 

the  necessary  elements  of  the  voluntary  psychosis  for  the  first 
time  clearly  present. 

The  reason  that  in  imitation  the  material  for  volition  is 
found  is  seen  to  be  that  here  the  'circular  process,'  already 
described,  maintains  itself  in  a  conscious  way  through  the 
picturing  of  sights,  sounds,  etc.  In  reactions  which  are  not 
consciously  imitative,  for  example  an  ordinary  pain-move- 
ment reaction,  this  circular  process,  whereby  the  result  of  the 
first  movement  becomes  itself  a  stimulus  to  the  second,  etc., 
is  not  brought  about ;  or,  if  it  do  arise,  it  consists  simply  in  a 
repetition  of  the  same  motor  event  fixed  by  association  —  as 
the  repetition  of  the  ma  sound  so  common  with  very  young 
infants.  Consciousness  remains  mono'ideistic.  But  in  per- 
sistent imitation,  the  reaction  performed  comes  in  by  eye 
or  ear  as  a  new  and  different  stimulus  (see  Fig.  XIII.) ;  here 


mt 

FIG.  XIII.  — SIMPLE  IMITATION.  »,»'  =  VISUAL  SEAT  ;  mp=  MOTOR  SEAT; 
mt  =  MUSCLE  MOVED  ;  me  =  MUSCLE-SENSE  SEAT  ;  A  =  '  COPY  '  IMITATED  ; 
B=  IMITATION  MADE.  THE  TWO  PROCESSES  v  AND  »'  FLOW  TOGETHER 
IN  THE  OLD  CHANNEL  v,  mp,  FIXED  BY  ASSOCIATION,  AND  THE  REAC- 
TION IS  REPEATED  WITHOUT  CHANGE  OR  EFFORT. 

is  the  state  of  motor  polyideism  necessary  for  the  rise  of  the 
feeling  of  effort.  The  motor  process  must  be  reduced  by  co- 
ordination to  a  reaction  which  will  reproduce  the  copy,  and  at 


Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child  357 

the  same  time  employ,  with  least  modification,  the  channels  of 
discharge  already  fixed  by  the  association  between  presenta- 
tion and  movement. 

From  this  and  the  other  lines  of  evidence  given  below, 
we  are  able  to  see  more  clearly  the  conditions  under  which 
effort  arises.  It  seems  clear  that  (i)  the  muscular  sen- 
sations arising  from  a  suggestive  reaction  do  not  present 
all  the  conditions;  in  young  children,  just  as  in  habitual 
adult  performances,  muscular  sensations  simply  tend  to  give  a 
repetition  of  the  muscular  event  by  strict  association,  without 
any  new  attentive  co-ordination  at  all.  There  is  no  new 
adaptation,  and  so  no  effort.  The  kinaesthetic  centre  empties 
into  a  lower  motor  centre  in  some  such  way  as  that  described 
by  James,1  along  the  diagonal  line  me,  mp  in  the  'motor 
square'  diagram  given  above  (Fig.  XIII.).  This  is  also  true 
when  (2)  sensations  of  the  'remote'  kinaesthetic  order,  the 
sight  or  hearing  of  movements  made,  are  added  to  the  mus- 
cular sensations.  They  may  all  coalesce  to  produce  again  a 
repetition  of  the  original  reaction.  The  'remote'  and  'im- 
mediate' sources  of  motor  stimulation  reinforce  each  other. 
This  is  seen  in  a  child's  satisfied  repetition  of  its  own  mistakes 
in  speaking  and  drawing,  although  it  hears  and  sees  its  own 
performances.  Consequently  (3)  there  is  muscular  effort  only 
when  the  'copy'  persists  and  is  compared  with  the  result  of  the 
first  reaction ;  that  is,  on  the  mental  side,  when  the  two  pres- 
entations are  held  together  in  the  attention,  so  that  together 
they  represent  one  intended  movement  or  mental  end ;  and 
on  the  physical  side,  when  the  two  processes,  started  respec- 
tively by  the  'copy'  and  the  reactive  result,  are  co-ordinated 
together  in  a  common  motor  discharge  (cc,  mpr  in  Fig.  XIV.). 
The  stimulus  to  repeated  effort  arises  from  the  lack  of  this 
co-ordination  or  identity  in  the  motor  influences  of  the  dif- 
1  Princ.  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  582. 


358 


The  Origin  of  Volition 


ferent  stimulations  which  reach  a  possible  centre  of  co-ordi- 
nation simultaneously;  or  if  we  consider  such  co-ordination 
only  functionally  —  instead  of  making  it  a  matter  of  a  separate 
local  seat  —  this  will-stimulus  represents  the  degree  of  dif- 
ficulty these  stimulations  have  in  getting  thus  united  in  a 
common  motor  function.1  The  mental  outcome,  effort,  ac- 


FIG.  XIV.  — PERSISTENT  IMITATION  WITH  EFFORT.  C=  SUCCESSFUL  IMITA- 
TION ;  cc-  CO-ORDINATING  CENTRE,  EITHER  LOCAL  OR  PURELY  FUNC- 
TIONAL. OTHER  LETTERS  SAME  AS  IN  FIG.  XIII.,  WITH  THE  ADDED 

CIRCUIT  CC,  mp',  mt' ,  me' .  THE  PROCESSES  AT  V  AND  *'  DO  NOT  FLOW 
TOGETHER  IN  THE  OLD  CHANNEL  v,  mp,  BUT  ARE  CO-ORDINATED  AT  CC 

IN  A  NEW  REACTION  mp',  mf,  WHICH  INCLUDES  ALL  THE  ELEMENTS  OF 

THE  '  COPY '  (A)  AND  MORE.  THE  USELESS  ELEMENTS  THEN  FALL 
AWAY  BECAUSE  THEY  ARE  USELESS  AND  THE  SUCCESSFUL  EFFORT  IS 
ESTABLISHED. 

companies  the  gathering  of  these  combined  influences,  and, 
as  soon  as  this  outburst  reproduces  the  'copy,'  the  effort  is  said 

1  This  does  not  necessarily  imply  a  central  versus  peripheral  theory  of  the 
sense  of  effort ;  for  the  '  relative  difficulty '  spoken  of  in  effecting  the  co-ordina- 
tion in  the  attention  may  itself  represent  peripheral  elements  which  inhibit  the 
attention,  or  lack  of  the  necessary  peripheral  elements  to  stimulate  the  atten- 
tion, or  the  very  feeling  of  effort  may  be  made  up  of  sensations  from  the 
muscles  which  are  used  in  the  act  of  attention.  See  Chap.  XV.,  §§  i  ff. 


Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child  359 

to  'succeed,'  the  subject  is  satisfied,  'will-stimulus'  disap- 
pears, and  the  reaction  tends  to  become  simple  as  habit. 

Physiologically  the  point  which  distinguishes  persistent 
imitation  with  effort  from  simple  imitation  with  repetition 
is  this  co-ordination  of  motor  processes.  In  simple  imitation 
the  excitement  aroused  by  the  reaction,  as  its  result  is  reported 
inwards  by  the  eye  or  ear,  finds  no  outlet  except  that  already 
utilized  in  the  earlier  suggestive  reactions.  Hence  it  passes 
off  in  the  way  of  a  repetition  of  the  earlier  discharge,  which 
represents  inherited  tendency,  reflex  movement,  accidental 
association,  pleasure-pain  acquisition,  or  what  not.  All  this 
is  an  affair  of  the  'second  level,'  of  suggestion,  of  reactive 
consciousness.  The  child  repeats  its  prattle  over  and  over, 
as  it  lies  abed  in  the  early  morning,  simply  from  vigour,  not 
from  desire,  nor  from  effort,  least  of  all  with  deliberation. 
The  sounds  he  makes  are  accompanied  by  sensations  in  his 
vocal  organs,  and  what  he  hears  he  makes  again,  and  so  on, 
simply  because  his  machinery  works  that  way  —  works  easily 
and  gives  him  the  pleasure  of  exercise  and  rhythm. 

But  persistent  imitation  —  how  different !  The  same 
reaction  is  not  repeated.  He  is  no  longer  delighted  with  his 
simple  activity.  He  detects  differences  between  what  he  sees 
or  hears  and  what  he  produces  by  hand  or  tongue,1  and  grows 
restless  under  these  differences.  Then  he  makes  effort  to 
reduce  the  difference  by  altering  his  movements,  and  what  is 

1  "It  seems  just  to  say,"  remarks  Janet  (Autom.  Psych.,  p.  475),  "that 
voluntary  effort  consists  in  the  systematization  of  images  and  memories 
which  are  accustomed  to  express  themselves  one  at  a  time  automatically"; 
and  (p.  474),  "the  patient  copies  the  movement  of  my  arm  automatically, 
while  I  copy  a  drawing  voluntarily ;  the  reason  of  it  is  that  the  patient  acts 
only  because  he  has  an  image  of  the  action,  and  he  carries  it  out  without  pass- 
ing judgment  upon  it  [simple  imitative  suggestion],  while  I  copy  the  drawing, 
perceiving  the  resemblance,  and  because  I  perceive  it"  [persistent  imitation 
or  volition].  Compare  his  context. 


360  The  Origin  of  Volition 

most  remarkable,  he  succeeds  in  doing  so.  How  he  does  this, 
—  how  he  brings  about  a  change  in  his  reactions,  from  sense- 
less repetition  to  intelligent  conformity  to  the  copy  which  he 
imitates,  —  that  is  the  question  of  accommodation,  but  he 
does  it,  and  the  least  that  this  can  mean  is  that  there  is  in 
some  way  a  modification  of  the  impelling  influence  of  his  old 
associations. 

What  happens  is  an  'effort/  and  by  this  effort  the  two  stimu- 
lations, the  original  'copy'  and  his  own  reproduction  of  it, 
are  combined  in  one  motor  response.  The  two  centres,  or 
partial  centres,  stimulated  by  the  original  copy,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  by  the  reaction  as  it  is  seen  or  heard,  on  the  other 
hand,  get  combined  in  a  common  action,  whose  outcome  is  not 
carried  off  entirely  by  the  old  associated  channel  of  discharge, 
but  finds  in  part  new  adjacent  channels ;  and  so  the  external 
reaction  becomes  different  and  more  adequate,  only  to  be 
reported  in  again  by  eye  or  ear,  and  so  by  co-ordination  to 
produce  again  a  new  effort,  etc. 

The  foregoing  development  uses  the  term  'co-ordination' 
with  a  twofold  application :  first,  it  is  applied  to  the  physical 
process  in  the  brain,  whereby,  as  we  may  suppose,  different 
areas  of  stimulation  are  brought  together  for  a  united  function 
in  a  very  complex  way.  It  involves  at  once  greater  com- 
plexity and  larger  unity.  It  is  the  type  of  function  character- 
istic of  the  highest  level,  the  cortex.  The  lower  reactions,  the 
reflexes,  suggestive  responses,  etc.,  are  each,  when  taken  alone, 
independent  in  great  measure ;  each  acts  for  itself  on  its  own 
stimulus.  But  cortical  processes  are  not  so.  While  they  are 
more  varied,  they  are  also  more  unstable  and  more  intercon- 
nected. They  coalesce  in  a  single  function  which  does  not 
show  its  enormous  complexity  on  its  face.  For  example, 
speech  involves  five  or  six  well-localized  areas  co-ordinated 
in  a  common  discharge,  and  it  is  rare  that  one  is  injured  with- 


Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child  361 

out  injuring  the  common  function  which  draws  support  from 
each. 

On  the  mental  side  we  find  co-ordination  also,  and  it  is 
always  a  process  which  takes  attention  in  the  learning  and, 
until  it  becomes  fixed  by  habit,  in  the  execution  also,  in- 
variably. Every  original  co-ordination  of  stimulations  in- 
volving desire,  deliberation,  effort,  is  an  act  of  attention. 
This,  of  course,  cannot  be  a  mere  incidental  or  unessential 
fact.  All  that  we  know  of  attention  shows  it  to  be  too 
central  a  thing  for  that.  It  remains,  therefore,  among  the 
problems  yet  to  be  answered,  what  attention  is,  how  its  rise 
takes  place,  and  what  its  presence  means  in  the  beginning 
of  voluntary  movement.1  Here  we  may  remark  that  the 
function  of  consciousness,  in  this  act  of  persistent  imitation, 
seems  to  be  exhausted  in  the  fact  of  close  attention  to  the 
'copy.'  The  infant  does  not  attend  to  his  movements,2  nor 
does  he  shift  his  attention  from  his  copy  to  his  own  imitation, 
except  between  his  efforts.  On  the  contrary,  in  visual  imita- 
tion, for  example,  he  keeps  his  eye  fixed  on  the  movement, 
the  tracing,  or  the  action  of  the  person  whom  he  is  imitating; 
and  his  success  in  the  effort  seems  to  depend  upon  the  degree 
in  which  he  is  able  to  hold  this  copy  series  up  steady  and  un- 
changed before  him.  How  it  comes  that  during  this  con- 
centration upon  the  copy,  and  by  reason  of  it,  the  muscular 
actions  are  conforming  themselves  more  and  more  to  its 
exact  reproduction  —  this  has  been  the  topic  of  the  earlier 
chapters  on  Development.8 

The  complex  'copy'  of  persistent  imitation  is  necessary, 

1  See  below,  Chap.  XV. 

1  So  we  have  seen  in  connection  with  'tracery-imitation,'  above. 

*  Golf-players  know  the  disastrous  effects  of  taking  the  eye  off  the  ball; 
the  attention  is  visual,  and  the  entire  co-ordination,  the  stroke,  is  secured 
through  it. 


362  The  Origin  of  Volition 

therefore,  as  a  stimulus  to  the  tentative  voluntary  use  of  the 
muscles.  The  theory  that  all  voluntary  movements  are  led 
up  to  by  spontaneous  reactions  which  result  in  pleasure  or 
pain,  and  then  get  repeated  only  because  of  their  hedonic 
result,  will  not  hold  water  for  an  instant  in  the  presence  of 
the  phenomena  of  imitation.  Suppose  H.  endeavouring  in 
the  crudest  fashion  to  put  a  rubber  on  the  end  of  a  pencil, 
after  seeing  me  do  it,  —  one  of  her  earliest  imitations.  What 
a  chaos  of  ineffective  movements !  But  after  repeated  efforts 
she  gets  nearer  and  nearer  it,  till  at  last,  with  daily  object- 
lessons  from  me,  she  accomplishes  it.  Here  one  of  the  most 
valuable  combinations  of  thumb  and  finger  movements  is 
acquired,  simply  by  imitation,  and  in  the  face  of  constant 
discouragement,  anything  but  pleasant  to  the  child.  If  it 
is  due  to  the  fact  simply  that  movement  gives  pleasure,  why 
does  she  not  turn  to  other  movements?  Why  persist  in  this 
one  failure-bringing  thing?  Suppose  there  had  been  no  im- 
pulse to  do  what  she  saw  me  do,  no  motor  force  in  the  simple 
idea  of  the  rubber  on  the  pencil,  no  instinct  to  imitate ;  what 
happy  combination  of  Bain's  spontaneous  and  accidental 
movements  would  have  produced  this  result,  and  how  long 
would  it  have  taken  the  child  if  she  had  waited  for  experiences 
actually  pleasurable  to  build  up  this  motor  combination? 

In  cases  of  persistent  imitation  there  is  more  than  associa- 
tion as  such.  The  movements  imitated  are  new,  as  com- 
binations. It  is  probable,  it  is  true,  that  various  ideas  of 
former  movements  are  brought  up,  and  that  the  child  has  the 
consciousness  of  general  motor  capacity,  resting,  in  the  first 
place,  upon  spontaneous  impulsive  reactions,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  this  consciousness  is  a  kind  of  massed  or  bunched 
sense  of  the  particular  member  whose  action  is  necessary, 
arising  from  former  movements  of  it ;  but  on  this  insufficient 
associational  basis  he  strikes  out  into  the  deepest  water  of 


Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child  363 

untried  experience.  For  this  reason,  as  was  said  above,  I 
believe  that  in  persistent  imitation  we  have  the  skeleton- 
process  of  volition ;  meaning  that  at  this  stage  consciousness 
is  not  held  down  in  its  motor  outcome  strictly  to  past  reac- 
tions held  in  memory,  but  issues  as  a  new  and  more  adaptive 
co-ordination  of  them.  Physiologically,  we  would  expect 
that  the  brain  energy  released  by  such  a  new  stimulus  as  the 
pencil-rubber  combination  would  pass  off  by  the  motor 
channels  already  fixed  by  spontaneous,  reflex,  and  associated 
reactions,  i.e.  that  the  child  would  be  content  with  a  motor 
reaction  of  the  suggestive  kind.  But  not  so.  He  is  not  con- 
tent until  he  produces  a  new  reaction  of  this  particular  sort ; 
and  we  must  suppose  that,  in  consequence  of  each  effort  of 
the  child,  the  physical  process  is  heightened  and  its  issuing 
movement  selected  from,  until  the  one  copy  is  reproduced. 
Volition  is  a  case  of  functional  selection. 

It  will  be  strange,  in  my  opinion,  if  this  view  of  the  origin 
of  volition  do  not  seem  quite  the  most  natural  one.  What 
are  we  really  bringing  about  in  willing  anything  ?  Are  we 
not  hoping  that  through  us  a  kind  of  experience,  object, 
thing  in  the  world,  may  be  brought  about  after  the  pattern 
of  our  idea  or  purpose?  Are  we  not  trying  to  actualize 
something  which  we  think  ought  to  be  reinstated  for  us  or 
for  others?  But  is  not  this  just  the  essential  thing  in  imita- 
tion, —  the  reinstatement  of  something,  the  copying  of  what 
has  already  been  in  us,  in  others,  or  in  the  world  ?  A  child 
imitates  automatically  a  sound  he  hears  —  one  case;  and 
then,  remembering  it  but  not  hearing  it,  wills  to  make  it  — 
a  second  case.1  Where  is  the  difference  in  the  type  of  occur- 
rence in  the  two  cases,  as  far  as  the  child's  active  life  is  con- 
cerned ?  The  only  difference  is  that,  in  the  former  case,  his 

1  Cf.  Binet's  exposition  of  James's  view  in  terms  of  imitation  (Alter,  of 
Personality,  pp.  156  f.). 


364  The  Origin  of  Volition 

ear  brings  to  him  what  he  imitates,  and  his  motor  apparatus 
is  ready  for  it;  in  the  latter  case,  his  memory  brings  it  to 
him,  and  his  motor  apparatus  is  not  altogether  ready  for  it. 
Is  it  not  likely,  therefore,  that  the  simplest  case  of  the  more 
complex  instance  of  this  one  typical  process  springs  out  of 
the  most  complex  case  of  the  simpler  instance,  —  that  the 
growing  complexity  of  the  conditions  is  just  what  is  meant 
by  the  child's  desire,  and  that  the  growing  richness  and 
explicitness  and  difficulty  of  the  conscious  performance,  what 
is  meant  by  his  volition  ? 

The  position  of  volition  in  the  progress  of  the  individual, 
in  his  life  history,  may  be  depicted  by  a  figure  (Fig.  XV.),  the 
environment  (i),  in  the  shape  of  suggestion  (2),  in  imping- 
ing upon  the  organism,  stimulates  to  volition  (3),  which, 
when  ratified  and  repeated,  gives  rise  to  habits  (4),  and  these 
habits  tend  to  become  automatic  reactions  and  impulses, 
only  to  come  in  contact  with  new  suggestions  from  the  environ- 
ment, and  so  on.  Thus  the  life  plan  becomes  fuller  and 
wider.  I  have  used  the  spiral  to  denote  this  progress, 
which  is  continuous  throughout  the  life  period.  Its  analogue 
—  the  'life-spiral'  of  race  development  —  is  given  in  the  next 
figure  below. 

The  crisis  in  the  child's  motor  development,  which  is  pre- 
cipitated by  persistent  imitation,  tends  to  come  again  and 
again  to  the  front  in  later  years  in  many  interesting  situa- 
tions. The  following  game  of  my  children,  H.,  of  five,  and 
E.,  of  nearly  three  years,  reflects  well  the  elements  of  choice, 
as  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  volition  requires  them.  I  set 
the  two  children  to  walking  fast  around  an  oval  table  in 
contrary  directions,  marking  the  places  where  they  were  to 
meet,  on  the  two  opposite  sides,  with  chairs  drawn  up  to  the 
table.  They  were  to  meet  behind  the  first  chair,  shake  hands, 
and  then  pass  on  to  the  second  chair,  and  so  on.  On  coming 


Rise  of  Volition  in  the  Child  365 

to  the  first  chair,  the  smaller  girl,  E.,  was  so  impressed  with 
the  process  of  hand -shaking,  in  which  she  closely  imitated 
her  sister,  and  so  thoroughly  won  over  to  her  sister's  action, 
that  she  invariably  started  off  in  the  same  direction  with  her, 
thus  retracing  her  own  steps,  instead  of  passing  on  alone  to 


FIG.  XV. — ILLUSTRATING  ONTOGENETIC  DEVELOPMENT 

the  other  chair.  H.  remonstrated  with  her  again  and  again ; 
and  the  child's  conflict  in  motor  impulses  was  instructive  in 
the  extreme.  She  always  took  at  least  one  step  with  H., 
generally  more,  then  turned  and  started  off  alone  in  a  hesitat- 
ing and  uncertain  way,  and  never  seemed  quite  confident 
until  she  saw  her  sister  coming  around  the  table  to  meet  her 
again. 


366  The  Origin  of  Volition 

Here  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  course  of  a  continued  sug- 
gestive .  reaction  —  walking  regularly  forward  —  is  brought 
into  conflict  with  the  new  copy  for  imitation,  supplied  by 
her  sister's  action.  There  arises  a  balancing  of  motor  pro- 
cesses, attention  is  divided,  and  the  final  course  is  the  out- 
come of  a  co-ordination  of  these  rival  processes  in  the  atten- 
tion. So  she  wills  —  and  it  is  a  real  act  of  will  —  to  go  on  * 
around  the  table  alone,  but  only  after  the  great  hesitation  or 
embarrassment  which  is  a  true  indication  of  deliberation. 

§  3.    Phylo genetic 

Coming  to  look  at  the  place  of  volition  in  the  race  develop- 
ment of  consciousness,  we  find  that  the  determination  of 
the  method  of  its  rise  in  the  individual  is  instructive.  Viewed 
objectively,  a  mental  organism  is  subject,  at  any  stage,  to 
the  two  principles,  Habit  and  Accommodation,  already  formu- 
lated above.  Habit  represents  what  is  congenital  with  what 
it  tends  most  naturally  to  do,  under  the  guidance  of  all  ex- 
periences up  to  date.  Accommodation  represents  its  degree 
of  openness  or  adaptability,  in  giving  the  new  reactions,  which 
new  stimulations  or  arrangements  of  stimulations  call  upon  it 
to  make.  Now  just  as  in  the  child  the  phenomena  of  sug- 
gestion became  more  and  more  complex,  from  the  physio- 
logical reflex  type  up  to  the  ideo-motor,  deliberative,  and, 
finally,  the  persistent  type,  which  is  volition;  so,  in  the 
animal  series,  there  is  a  corresponding  development.  Voli- 

1  This  'game,'  which  became  very  popular  with  the  children,  was  really  an 
experiment  on  my  part,  suggested,  in  meditation  on  this  topic,  by  contrast 
to  an  earlier  experiment  which  I  tried  with  H.,  when  she  was  in  her  second 
and  third  years.  This  latter  was  an  attempt  to  bring  out  the  regularity  of  the 
operation  of  suggestion,  by  arranging  attractive  things  about  a  room,  so  that 
only  after  reaching  one  could  she  see  the  next,  etc.  I  found  her  the  victim, 
of  course,  to  this  device.  She  rushed  from  one  of  the  objects  to  another 
with  great  avidity. 


Phylogenetic  367 

tion  is  found  only  in  animals  having  ideation,  memory, 
desires.  Who  can  doubt  that  the  dog  desires  the  morsel 
which  he  holds  upon  his  nose,  awaiting  his  master's  permis- 
sion to  eat  it  ?  All  the  conditions  of  desire  are  there :  com- 
plex representation,  incipient  action,  and  inhibition.  And 
who  can  doubt  that  there  is  volition  when  he  gets  permission 
and  eats  the  morsel  ?  But  lower  in  the  scale,  such  cases  shade 
down  into  the  sphere  of  suggestion,  as  the  animal  becomes  less 
ideational,  less  social,  more  organic,  and  more  dependent 
upon  a  small  circle  of  stimulations. 

In  volition,  therefore,  we  find  the  point  of  meeting  of 
the  two  principles,  Habit  and  Accommodation,  and  their 
common  function.  It  is  through  volition  that  the  levelling 
effects  of  habit  are  counteracted  in  the  higher  orders  of  life, 
since  it  brings  possibilities  of  adjustment  to  absent  and 
distant  conditions,  and  so  wages  conflict  with  the  dictates  of 
present  sensation.  Yet  it  is  through  volition  on  the  other 
hand,  that  new  habits  are  formed.  Only  by  the  continued 
inhibitions  and  controls  of  volition  is  a  new  action  which  is 
still  hard  to  perform  preserved  amid  the  pressing  urgencies 
of  what  is  old  and  easy.  So  volition  ministers  to  both  kinds 
of  development,  and  sums  them  up ;  and  so  justifies  both  its 
survival  and  its  splendid  eminence  among  all  the  survivals  in 
the  mental  series. 

To  put  the  same  thought  from  the  point  of  view  of  any 
given  stage  of  evolution,  we  may  say  that  two  factors  are 
potent  in  the  manifestations  of  the  character  of  an  organ- 
ism at  whatever  stage :  endowment  and  environment.  Habits 
add  to  endowment,  and  all  accommodations  are  concessions 
of  endowment  to  environment.  Now,  as  is  seen  in  Fig.  XVI., 
the  environment  (i),  working  as  suggestion  (2),  brings  about 
a  new  volition  (3),  this  is  repeated  by  persistent  reaction, 
and  so  forms  habit  (4),  this  is  added  to  endowment  (5)  by 


368 


The  Origin  of  Volition 


natural  selection,1  and  so  constitutes  an  element  of  in- 
stinctive character  (6),  in  later  generations,  and  this  char- 
acter or  instinct,  in  the  new  individual,  again  confronts  the 
suggestions  of  the  physical  and  moral  environment  (i).  So 
we  have  in  the  highest  exhibition  of  reflective  volition  no 
departure  in  type  —  however  wide  a  departure  it  be  in  mean- 


Undowment,  \Hatnt 
^ 


FIG.  XVI.— ILLUSTRATING  PHYLOGENETIC  DEVELOPMENT. 

ing  and  implications  for  philosophy  —  from  the  first  adaptive 
reactions  of  organic  life.  Habit  is  formed,  in  the  face  of  sug- 
gestion, through  persistent  imitation  and  volition,  and  habit, 
selected  for  character,  is  modified  in  turn  by  changed 
environment  which  is  reacted  to  by  imitation  and  volition. 

1  By  selection  of  variations  that  '  coincide,'  in  Lloyd  Morgan's  phrase. 


Special  Evidence  369 

What  is  this  but  a  phylogenetic  exhibition  of  the  'circular 
activity'  seen  in  all  development?  —  just  what  we  would 
expect,  if  volition  is  really  a  new,  more  complex  form  of  the 
interaction  of  Habit  and  Accommodation  in  the  growth  of  the 
individual. 

§  4.  Special  Evidence 

Besides  the  very  high  presumption  that  volition,  considered 
as  a  departure  in  the  mental  life,  arises  in  the  way  of  a  new 
adaptation  of  the  living  creature  to  its  surroundings,  -and 
that  it  also  follows  the  law  of  accommodation  by  imitation 
which  is  the  agent  of  all  the  earlier  adaptations ;  and  besides 
the  presumption  afforded  by  the  great  reasonableness  of  the 
view  as  based  upon  an  adequate  analysis  of  desire  and  voli- 
tion—  besides  all  this,  there  are  several  lines  of  objective 
evidence  which  connect  early  volition  directly  with  reactions 
of  the  imitative  type. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  the  instances  of  so-called  pre-imita- 
tive  volition  in  infants,  reported  by  various  observers,  can 
generally  be  explained  in  much  simpler  terms.  The  cate- 
gories of  suggestion  which  I  have  marked  out  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  shading  off  into  one  another  as  they  do  by  imper- 
ceptible degrees,  seem  to  afford  plenty  of  latitude  for  these 
cases.  They  differ  greatly  from  the  well-defined  classes  of 
movements  called  reflex,  impulsive,  automatic,  etc.,  inas- 
much as  normal  suggestion  represents  a  side  of  mental  growth 
which  has  heretofore  gone  largely  unformulated.  Reflex, 
impulse,  instinct,  etc.,  all  represent  habit,  but  they  all  pre- 
suppose accommodation,  and  it  is  only  as  we  get  some  kind 
of  a  unifying  principle  of  accommodation,  that  the  partial 
statements  of  the  law  of  habit  get  any  common  significance. 
Suggestion  is  the  accommodation  side  of  growth,  all  the  way 


370  The  Origin  of  Volition 

up  to  the  most  vivid  forms  of  consciousness,  and  imitation 
is  certainly  —  in  its  conscious  form  —  the  most  direct  form 
of  suggestion.  And  even  after  volition  ushers  in  a  higher 
type  of  accommodation,  suggestion  still  supplies  most  of  its 
impetus.  So  when  it  seems  impossible  to  assign  a  given 
reaction  to  any  one  of  the  categories  of  habit,  that  is  no 
reason  for  leaping  at  once  to  volition,  the  most  advanced 
form  of  accommodation ;  rather  ought  we  to  attempt  to  find 
its  place  under  suggestion,  which  is  the  simpler  form  of 
accommodation . 

Accordingly,  we  may,  as  the  result  shows,  place  all  of  the 
infant's  so-called  'efforts,'  in  its  early  months,  under  the 
category  of  suggestion,  only  having  to  recognize  certain 
cases  which  are,  more  evidently  than  others,  germinal  to 
volition.  My  child  E.,  early  in  her  second  month,  strained 
to  lift  her  head  at  the  sound  of  any  one  entering  the  room, 
and  in  her  fourth  month,  after  the  child  had  been  frequently 
lifted  to  a  sitting  posture  by  the  clasping  of  her  hands  around 
her  mother's  fingers,  the  mere  sight  of  fingers  extended  before 
her  made  her  grasp  at  them  and  'attempt'  to  raise  herself. 
Now,  as  it  happens,  it  is  just  the  case  of  so-called  'effort' 
that  is  appealed  to  as  showing  very  early  volition.  Preyer 
says:1  "We  may,  therefore,  without  hesitation,  refer  the 
period  of  the  first  distinct  manifestation  of  the  activity  of 
will  in  the  infant  in  this  field,  to  that  week  in  which  the  head, 
while  he  is  awake,  no  longer  bobs  hither  and  thither  —  in 
general,  the  fourth  to  the  fifth  month."  That  is,  Preyer 
holds  that  the  successful  holding  up  of  the  head  is  voluntary, 
while  the  various  unsuccessful  attempts  of  the  child  to  do  so 
were  possibly  not. 

These  earlier  'efforts'  are  reactions  perfected  by  associa- 
tion between  the  advantageous  sensations  secured  through 
1  Mind,  oj  the  Child,  Vol.  I.,  p.  265. 


Special  Evidence  371 

sight,  taste,  etc.,  while  the  child  is  held  erect,  and  the  mus- 
cular sensations  of  erectness.  So  Preyer  holds,  and  this  ex- 
planation is,  I  think,  quite  correct  as  far  as  it  goes.  But  as 
to  this  particular  act,  we  find  these  'efforts'  suggested  by 
noises,  sights,  especially  by  personal  suggestions,  at  such  an 
early  age  that  the  reaction  for  erect  posture  is  probably  to 
be  considered  a  matter  of  native  congenital  tendency,  just  as 
the  walking  reflex  is.  So  that  the  whole  thing  becomes  a 
case  of  physiological  and  sensori-motor  suggestion.  And 
even  when  acquired  completely  —  when  there  is  no  'bobbing 
hither  and  thither'  —  there  is  no  need  whatever  to  find  in  it, 
as  Preyer  does,  evidence  of  will.  We  adults  hold  our  heads 
up  because  our  normal  sensational  series,  especially  of  the 
visual  and  muscular  sensations,  and  their  correspondences, 
have  been  acquired  since  we  have  been  holding  our  heads 
up,  and  so  they  all  conspire  by  their  associative  influence  to 
stimulate  the  contractions  necessary  for  this  head  position. 
There  is  no  need  to  bring  in  volition,  or  even  attention.  And 
it  is  probable  that  these  associations  only  reinforce  the  native 
tendency  I  have  spoken  of.  Such  efforts,  therefore,  on  the 
part  of  the  child,  lack  deliberation,  and  all  but,  perhaps,  the 
faintest  glimmerings  of  desire. 

A  similar  account  may  be  given  of  'simple  imitation.'  It 
does  not  involve  volition;  it  is,  rather,  simple  ideo-motor 
suggestion  made  possible  by  associations  between  visual, 
auditory,  or  other  stimulations,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
muscle  sensations  on  the  other.  Here,  again,  I  differ  from 
Preyer,  instead  of  having  the  advantage  of  agreeing  with  him, 
which  the  following  quotation  seems  to  give  me.1  He  says : 2 
"The  first  imitations  are  the  first  distinct,  represented,  and 

1  Professor  Sully  called  my  attention  to  this  apparent  agreement.     See  his 
remarks,  Proc.  of  Cong,  of  Exp.  Psycho!.,  London  meeting,  1892,  p.  55. 
*  Preyer,  Mind  of  the  Child,  I.,  340. 


372  The  Origin  of  Volition 

willed  movements."  This  makes  all  imitations  voluntary: 
both  the  simple  and  the  persistent  forms.  Now  Preyer  recog- 
nizes such  a  distinction,  —  'spontaneous'  and  'deliberative' 
imitation  are  his  terms,  —  but  does  nothing  with  the  dis- 
tinction. To  me  it  is  as  fundamental  in  the  child's  develop- 
ment as  the  distinction  between  suggestion  and  volition, 
between  reaction  and  conduct.  Simple  imitation  falls  easily 
under  suggestion,  because  it  may  not  involve  memory,  nor 
selection,  nor  variation,  nor  desire,  nor  deliberation,  nor 
effort ;  only  a  sensation  and  a  movement  in  organic  connection. 
This  is  mere  habit.  How  many  of  the  essentials  of  volition 
does  the  parrot  have,  or  the  young  bird  that  imitates  the  old 
one's  flight?  Why  should  these  acts  be  thought  voluntary? 
But  persistent  imitation,  as  we  have  seen,  presents  new  prob- 
lems :  the  breaking  up  of  habit ;  vivid  selection  on  the  part 
of  consciousness ;  the  new,  strenuous  experience  called  effort ; 
and  the  actual  accomplishment  of  the  new,  by  a  real  process 
of  learning.  Indeed,  so  great  is  the  difference,  that  when- 
ever a  natural  history  view  of  consciousness,  which  involves 
continuous  development,  is  desired,  it  is  just  this  magnificent 
appearance  of  discontinuity  which  is  the  point  of  greatest 
difficulty ;  and  it  may  be  as  well  to  remind  the  disciples  of 
Maine  de  Biran,  Reid,  and  William  James,  that  the  act  of 
the  infant's  'try-try-again'  gives  them  their  golden  oppor- 
tunity. 

These  instances  may  serve  to  show  the  way  in  which,  as 
I  think,  the  category  of  suggestion,  on  the  accommodation 
side  of  mental  development,  has  been  neglected,  with  the 
result  that  the  'psychologist's  fallacy'  has  been  committed 
regularly  by  those  who  have  read  volition  into  the  infant's 
consciousness  at  such  early  stages  of  its  growth. 

So  far,  therefore,  as  cases  of  so-called  effort  shade  down- 
wards into  suggestions,  they  are  properly  classified  as  pre- 


Special  Evidence 


373 


volitional.  But  there  is  a  distinct  class  of  phenomena  in  which 
the  shading  is  the  reverse,  —  cases  in  which  the  rudiments 
of  volition  must  be  recognized  even  in  the  absence  of  'ex- 
ternal copies'  for  imitation.  This  brings  us,  hi  a  later  sec- 
tion,1 to  the  child's  imitation  of  its  own  memories  and  imagi- 
nations, and  to  those  cases  which  illustrate  the  relation  of 
'organic'  and  'plastic'  imitation  to  volition. 

II.  The  results  of  a  research  on  students,  reported  else- 
where 2  under  the  title,  'Persistent  Imitation  Experiments.' 
The  subject  is  told  to  imitate  a  simple  figure,  called  the  'copy,' 
set  before  him,  drawing  in  pencil  or  chalk,  at  a  single  stroke. 
Then  he  compares  his  performance  with  the  copy  and  tries 

TABLE  VIII 


Copy 

Will  Stimulus 
(Av.  No.  of  Efforts 
in  Each  Experi- 
ment) 

No.  of 
Experiments 

No.  of 
Persons 

a.  External  visual,  with  comparison 

3-57] 

b.  External  visual,  without  compari- 

I ratio  1.72 

5' 

6 

son    

2.09  J 

c.  Memory  image  after  ten  minutes, 

2        1 

d.  Memory  image  after  ten  minutes, 

* 
L  ratio  i.  60 

30 

4 

127 

e.  Memory  image  after  fifteen  min- 

e661 

f.  Memory  image  after  fifteen  min- 

5.00 
I  ratio  1.55 

6 

I 

utes,  without  comparison    .  .  . 

3-66  J 

PERSISTENT  IMITATION  EXPERIMENTS  :  A.  Influence  of  comparison  =  increase 
of  will  stimulus  from  about  75  %  to  50%  according  to  lapse  of  time. 

1  Below,  §  5  of  this  chapter. 

2  See  Proc.  of  Cong,  oj  Exp.  Psychology,  London,  August,  1892,  p.  51,  for 
first  statement. 


374 


The  Origin  of  Volition 


again ;  and  so  on,  until  satisfied  with  the  result.  This  done, 
the  number  of  his  efforts  is  noted.  This  I  may  call  in  the 
tables  (VIII.,  IX.)  the  case  'with  comparison.'  Then  he  is 
instructed  to  go  through  the  same  experiment  again,  except 
that  his  eyes  are  now  bandaged,  so  that  he  is  not  able  to  com- 
pare his  own  results  with  the  copy.  The  number  of  efforts 
is  noted  as  before.  This  is  the  case  'without  comparison.' 

Now  it  is  evident  that  the  relative  number  of  'efforts'  in 
each  case  may  be  taken  to  indicate  the  amount  of  tendency 
the  subject  has  to  continue  the  imitation,  —  a  quantity  tech- 
nically known  as  'will-stimulus.'  The  results  given  in  the 
tables  show  that  in  the  case  'without  comparison'  the  subject 
is  liable  to  be  satisfied  with  a  smaller  number  of  efforts ;  this 
would  indicate  that  when  the  new  visual  picture  is  not  re- 
ported, there  is  not  the  same  will-stimulus.  But  in  the  other 
case,  'with  comparison,'  effort  after  effort  is  made,  until 
success  is  attained,  or  until  the  subject  gives  it  up;  so  the 
inference  is  that  there  is  then  continued  will-stimulus  until 

TABLE  IX 


Copy 

Will  Stimulus 
(Av.  No.  of  Efforts 
in  Each  Experi- 
ment) 

No.  of 
Experiments 

No.  of 
Persons 

a.  External  visual,  with  comparison 

3-571 

5* 

6 

b.  Memory  image  after  ten  minutes, 

\  ratio  1.79 

2 

3O 

e.   Memory  image  after  one  minute, 

2  OQ~| 

ci 

6 

d.  Memory  image  after  ten  minutes, 
without  comparison   

\  ratio  1.65 
1.27  J 

30 

4 

PERSISTENT  IMITATION  EXPERIMENTS:  B.  Diminution  of  motor  force  of 
memory  after  ten  minutes  =  from  about  60  %  to  80  %,  according  as  com- 
parison is  made,  or  not,  of  results  with  memory  image. 


Special  Evidence  375 

either  the  motor  plurality  is  overcome,  or  the  stimulus  effect 
is  itself  inhibited  by  discouragement.  The  figures  (Table 
VIII.,  A]  show  that  in  the  case  of  comparison  there  is  an  in- 
crease of  from  75  per  cent,  down  to  50  per  cent,  in  the  will 
stimulus  for  memory  durations  from  one  down  to  ten  minutes. 

Table  IX.,  B.  shows  the  further  interesting  result  that  if  the 
external  'copy'  be  removed  and  the  subject  rely  upon  his 
memory,  the  number  of  efforts  tends  to  decrease  in  some  ratio 
with  the  length  of  time  elapsed.  This  is  what  we  should  ex- 
pect from  other  experiments  on  the  faithfulness  of  memory,1 
which  show  that  the  memory  process  loses  its  definite  char- 
acter with  time.  The  figures  show  a  diminution  of  the  motor 
force  of  a  memory  after  ten  minutes  from  about  60  per  cent,  to 
80  per  cent.,  according  as  comparison  of  results  with  the 
memory  image  is  made  or  not. 

This  investigation  gives  evidence  of  the  necessity  for  motor 
co-ordination  —  what  is  called  '  comparison '  —  in  the  an- 
tecedents to  voluntary  movement.  This  is  the  essential 
contention  of  the  doctrine  of  the  genesis  of  volition  stated 
above ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  find  that  in  our  adult  life  our 
choices  are  still  backed  in  a  regular  way  by  that  dynamogenic 
agency  called  'will-stimulus.' 

III.  Another  kind  of  evidence  is  found  in  the  behaviour 
of  the  attention.  In  a  great  class  of  pathological  cases  of 

1  Experiments  on  memory  faithfulness  have  been  made  by  Wolfe,  by 
Ebbinghaus,  by  Miiller,  and  by  Warren  and  myself  (Proceedings  of  the  Amer. 
Psych.  Assoc.,  1893,  p.  18;  see  also  The  Psychological  Review,  1895,  pp. 
236  f.,  cf.  Kennedy,  Psychol.  Review,  Vol.  V.,  1898,  p.  477). 

The  method  of  testing  memory  by  measuring  the  amount  of  motor 
force  or  'will-stimulus'  possessed  by  memories  after  various  intervals,  was 
first  proposed  in  connection  with  these  experiments  (see  Proceedings  oj 
Cong,  of  Exp.  Psychol.,  2d  Session,  London,  1892,  p.  51).  This  method  is 
called  the  '  dynamogenic  method,'  and  a  correlation  is  suggested  between  the 
relative  motor  force  of  a  memory,  after  a  certain  interval,  and  its  degree  of 
faithfulness  to  its  original  perception,  after  the  same  interval. 


376  The  Origin  of  Volition 

anaesthesia  which  involves  paralysis  when  the  eyes  or  ears 
are  closed,  but  not  when  they  are  open  —  we  find  evidence 
that  disturbances  of  attention  bring  about  derangements  of 
voluntary  movement.  This  may  occur  even  when  the  patient 
keeps  intact  all  the  apparatus  of  movement,  and  all  the  mem- 
ories of  the  movements  which  he  desires  to  make.  And  the 
result  is  sometimes  reversed ;  a  patient  may  be  able  to  move 
a  member  except  when  he  sees  it.  Here  the  visual  images 
inhibit  the  movement.1  In  the  former  case,  the  attention 
has  become  dependent,  for  certain  voluntary  functions,  upon 
immediate  visual  or  auditory  stimulation,  and  in  its  absence, 
these  voluntary  functions  are  impossible.2  This  shows  that 
a  degree  of  correlation  of  optical,  kinaesthetic,  auditory,  etc., 
impressions  is  necessary  for  voluntary  movement,  and  that 
this  correlation  is  here,  as  everywhere  else,  a  function  of  the 
attention.  In  normal  voluntary  movement,  attention  need 
not  be  given  necessarily  to  the  muscular  movement  itself,  — 
although  that  is  one  type  of  voluntary  attention,  —  but  it 
may  be  given  to  some  other  kind  of  sensation,  auditory,  visual, 
etc.,  which  has  come  to  play  the  leading  part  in  this  particular 
movement,  and  under  the  lead  of  which  the  correlation  which 
issues  in  movement  is  effected. 

More  is  said  of  this  below  in  the  general  theory  of  volun- 
tary movement ; 3  but  here  it  may  be  noted  how  clearly  this 
accords  with  what  we  found  above  to  be  the  behaviour  of  the 
child's  attention  in  performing  its  first  voluntary  drawings. 
His  attention  has  to  be  fastened  upon  the  thing  or  'copy' 
imitated,  not  on  his  hand,  nor  on  his  memories  of  movement. 

1  Janet,  '  Un  cas  d'Aboulie,'  Revue  Philosophique,  March,  1891. 

2  See  Binet  and  Fere",  who  report  a  patient  who  could  thrust  out  his  tongue 
only  when  he  saw  it  in  a  mirror,  Arch,  de  Physiologic,  1887,  II.,  p.  371 ;  Pick, 
Zeitsch.  jiir  Physiologic,  IV.,  1892,  pp.  161  ff. ;   and  Baldwin,  Philos.  Re-view, 
II.,  1893,  p.  206. 

8  Below,  Chap.  XV.,  §§  3,  4. 


Special  Evidence  377 

Passy  finds  that  a  young  child  copies  a  new  thing  or  copy  by 
giving  attention  to  his  visual  memory  pictures.  This  is 
shown,  as  I  have  said  above,  by  the  fact  that  he  puts  into  his 
drawing,  certain  features  such  as  ears,  arms,  and  minor 
details,  which  are  not  in  the  actual  thing  or  copy,  but  only  in 
his  own  earlier  visual  pictures.  So  I  find  that  in  imitating 
new  words,  there  is  a  constant  tendency  on  the  part  of  the 
child,  to  reproduce  terms  he  already  knows  in  place  of  the 
words  of  the  new  lesson.  In  imitating  speech  also,  the  child 
does  not  learn  by  paying  attention  to  the  lips  of  the  speaker. 
He  sometimes  learns  the  guttural  letters,  which  are  not  spoken 
with  the  lips,  sooner  than  many  of  the  others.  Much  less 
does  he  pay  attention  to  his  own  lips;  from  all  appearances 
he  does  not  know  that  he  is  using  his  lips.  The  most  that  lip 
sensations  or  memories  do  is  to  supply  to  him  the  series  of 
associations  which  follow  upon  the  auditory  stimulations.  It 
is  these  last  to  which  he  pays  attention. 

Cases  are  abundant  not  only  in  which  aphasia  follows 
lesions  of  the  auditory  centre,  but  in  which  it  follows  lesions 
located  in  the  connections  between  the  auditory  and  the  word- 
seeing  and  word-hearing  centres.  Such  a  lesion  interferes 
with  the  correlative  or  associative  function.  And  it  is  indeed 
very  suggestive  of  the  new  function  found  in  persistent  imi- 
tation, that  while  this  latter  often  becomes  impossible,  in 
these  cases,  yet  the  simple  imitative  copying  of  sounds  heard 
or  movements  seen,  may  still  take  place.  Simple  ideo- 
motor  suggestion,  as  typified  in  simple  imitation,  remains 
intact;  but  persistent  imitation,  effort,  the  correlation  in- 
volved in  voluntary  attention  and  movement,  all  this  is  lost. 
Janet  thinks  *  the  incapacity  to  feel  objects  by  touch  in  cer- 
tain cases,  is  inversely  as  the  degree  of  customary  recognition 
of  the  objects,  their  uses,  etc. ;  which  is  to  say,  —  when  we 

1  Loc.  cit. 


378  The  Origin  of  Volition 

come  to  understand  that  recognition  may  itself  be  simply  due 
to  an  attitude  of  tendency  of  attention,  —  that  the  patient's 
ability  depends  largely  upon  the  degree  of  involuntariness  of 
attention,  that  is,  of  the  degree  of  the  simple  habit  of  attending. 

In  view  of  what  has  now  been  said,  the  real  difference 
between  what  is  voluntary  and  what  is  not  becomes  very 
emphatic,  and  we  have  the  key,  I  think,  to  the  understanding 
of  total  aboulia,  or  lack  of  will,  in  cases  of  disease;  and  of 
partial  aboulia,  seen  in  the  loss  of  particular  voluntary  func- 
tions, such  as  speech,  writing,  etc.1  These  matters  furnish 
a  further  line  of  evidence  which  I  shall  now  put  forward. 

IV.  Evidence  from  aboulia,  partial  or  total,  may  now  be 
brought.  The  general  principle  of  mental  pathology  that 
the  dissolution  of  complex  functions  follows  the  inverse  order 
of  their  acquisition,  applies  to  the  voluntary  activities  in  two 
ways. 

First,  we  should  find  stages  of  degeneration  corresponding 
to  the  great  epochs  of  mental  development  seen  in  the  phy- 
logenetic  or  race  series ;  this  would  seem  to  require  that  vol- 

1  While  not  able  to  speak  as  an  expert  in  Mental  Pathology,  I  yet  venture  to 
express  the  opinion  that  there  is  only  a  difference  of  degree  between  the  com- 
plete loss  of  will,  the  inability  to  make  effort  or  to  inhibit  impulse,  called 
aboulia,  and  the  cases  of  the  loss  of  particular  voluntary  functions  only,  — 
giving  aphasia,  agraphia,  etc.,  —  despite  the  apparent  difference  that,  in 
these  latter  cases,  mental  determination  or  effort  to  do  the  act  in  question 
seems  to  be  unimpaired.  The  patient  in  agraphia,  it  might  be  said,  makes 
effort  to  write,  but  fails ;  his  will  is  healthy,  only  his  handwriting  fails.  On 
the  contrary,  the  function  called  will  really  gets  its  right  to  be  from  the 
co-ordination  of  simpler  functions ;  its  stability  and  force  must  depend  upon 
the  support  it  gets  from  these  co-ordinations  of  simpler. functions;  and  the 
derangement  of  any  one  of  them,  such  as  handwriting,  —  unless  of  course 
the  lesion  be  peripheral,  —  must  withdraw  support  from  the  whole,  and  so 
weaken  the  function  of  will  generally.  We  are  all  aboulic  just  to  the  degree 
in  which  our  attentive  co-ordinations  are  unstable  and  independent  of  one 
another.  This  seems  to  be  required  on  any  psycho-physical  conception  of 
will. 


Special  Evidence  379 

tmtary  action  should  be  impaired  by  a  less  serious  derange- 
ment than  are  simple  suggestive  reactions;  and  that  the 
derangement  of  the  ideo-motor  should  precede  that  of  the 
sensori-motor.  Also  that  these  last,  which  involve  clear 
consciousness,  might  be  damaged  or  absent  while  reflex 
functions  still  remain;  and  that,  last  of  all,  the  rhythmic, 
so-called  automatic  processes,  which  are  necessary  to  life  in 
general,  might  remain  alone  upon  the  field.  All  of  these 
propositions,  except  the  first,  which  concerns  voluntary 
action,  are  such  commonplaces  in  psychology  as  well  as  in 
physiology,  that  I  need  mention  them  only  to  give  new  con- 
firmation to  the  great  features  of  the  phylogenetic  and 
ontogenetic  parallelism  on  the  side  of  mind. 

But,  second,  this  progressive  impairment  of  mental  fac- 
ulty in  the  individual  repeats  inversely  the  process  by  which 
the  individual  himself  learns  his  lessons  in  action.  The  man 
retrogrades  literally  into  second  childhood,  both  in  regard  to 
his  power  of  mind  as  a  whole,  and  in  regard  to  the  particular 
elements  of  any  distinct  functions  which  happen  to  be 
affected  by  disease  or  accident. 

These  two  cases  illustrate  the  two  very  distinct  and  in- 
structive phases  of  voluntary  failure,  already  characterized 
as  total  and  partial  aboulia.  In  the  former  case,  the  impair- 
ment is  general,  extending  to  the  co-ordinating  function  as  a 
whole,  and  so  involving  each  particular  activity  equally.  The 
old  man  writes  tremblingly,  speaks  falteringly,  recognizes 
faces  and  things  badly,  walks  haltingly,  —  all  of  which  follow 
from  the  fact  that  he  is  able  to  attend  only  partially  and 
fitfully.  In  partial  aboulia,  on  the  other  hand,  one  special 
function  is  impaired,  or  more;  the  rest  remain  intact.  Here 
belong  sensory  aphasia,  agraphia,  arising  from  arterial  obstruc- 
tions, central  lesion,  etc.  Some  particular  prop  to  the  atten- 
tion gets  knocked  away,  and  so  one  line  of  voluntary  activity  is 


380  The  Origin  of  Volition 

seriously  injured  or  destroyed ;  but  the  co-ordination  of  the 
other  brain  seats  is  still  intact,  and  their  functions  are  weak- 
ened only  to  the  degree  in  which  their  structure  of  attention 
also  rested  upon  this  prop. 

Both  these  cases  of  loss  or  impairment  of  will  may  be  put 
in  evidence  as  showing  the  place  of  volition  in  mental  devel- 
opment, provided  only  the  law  be  true  that  mind  degenerates 
in  the  same  order  as  it  grows,  only  backwards ;  that  is,  that 
the  function  which  it  acquires  latest,  it  loses  first  and  most 
easily.  We  then  have  to  ask  what  the  actual  facts  of  mental 
pathology  are  which  show  conditions  of  the  impairment  of 
will. 

Considering  total  aboulia  first,  the  condition  of  general 
levelling  down  or  decay  of  the  mental  faculties  gives  us  our 
instances.  There  are  several  recognized  cases  of  such  general 
mental  break-down,  all  involving  total  or  progressive  aboulia ; 
first,  destruction  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  corresponding  to 
their  removal  from  animals  by  the  experimental  physiolo- 
gists; second,  temporary  subsidence  of  consciousness  under 
the  influence  of  drugs,  or  in  derangement  of  the  vaso-motor 
mechanism,  as  in  faintness,  trance,  fits,  etc.;  and  third, 
diseases  distinctly  recognized  as  mental,  such  as  hysteria, 
of  which  the  universal  symptoms  are  certain  derangements  of 
consciousness,  enfeebled  attention,  remarkable  perversions 
of  movement,  etc.  To  these  must  be  added  idiocy  or  con- 
genital mental  defect.1  Looking  at  each  of  these  four  cases, 
we  find  very  evident  confirmation  of  the  view  of  volition 
explained  in  the  foregoing  pages. 

In  the   various  experiments   recorded   of  extirpation  of 

1 1  omit  the  phenomena  of  old  age,  since  neither  physiologists  nor  psy- 
chologists have  given  them  any  very  fruitful  study.  The  appearance  of 
what  seems  to  be  increased  power  of  will  —  self-will  —  in  old  persons,  is 
perhaps  due  to  the  great  strengthening  of  habit,  together  with  the  general 
narrowness  of  consciousness. 


Special  Evidence  381 

the  hemispheres,  the  phenomena  now  well  known  by  the 
phrases  'psychic  blindness,'  ' psychic  deafness,'  etc.,  appear. 
These  phrases  are  contrasted  with  'cortical'  blindness, 
deafness,  etc.  In  the  former,  the  animal  loses  all  his  sense 
of  the  meaning,  associations,  value,  of  what  he  sees  and  hears. 
He  still  sees  and  hears,  and  he  still  has  reactions  appropriate 
to  sight  and  hearing;  but  he  does  not  show  the  reactions 
peculiar  to  what  he  has  learned,  in  all  his  life,  about  what  he 
sees  and  hears.  After  certain  operations  upon  his  brain  the 
dog  sees  a  whip,  but  is  no  longer  afraid  of  it ;  sees  food,  but 
no  longer  moves  forward  to  secure  it ;  hears  a  voice,  but  no 
longer  recognizes  it.  What  psychologists  mean  by  'ap- 
perception' —  the  understanding  of  a  thing,  as  opposed  to  the 
mere  seeing  or  hearing  of  it  —  this  is  gone.  The  thing  seen  or 
heard  is  no  longer  a  co-ordinated  thing,  built  up  of  memories, 
varied  sensations,  motor  dynamogenies,  and  pleasures  or 
pains;  but  it  is  a  bare,  worthless  stimulus  to  reflex  or  sug- 
gestive reaction. 

Lack  of  co-ordination?  Then  lack  of  attention,  lack  of 
persistence,  of  effort,  of  volition  !  '  Exactly,'  says  the  brain- 
less pigeon,  'that  is  what  I  lack.'  Sustained  attention,  effort, 
volition  —  these  are  the  correlatives  of  the  co-ordinations 
of  memories  with  present  sensations,  the  motor  correlatives 
of  association  and  apperception.  Lack  on  one  side,  the 
sensory,  then  a  fortiori  lack  on  the  other,  the  motor.  The 
motor  it  is,  exactly,  which  holds  the  sensory  elements  to- 
gether. The  creature  shows,  in  fact,  no  complex  activity,  no 
curiosity,  no  constancy  of  attention,  no  persistence  in  his 
undertakings  —  indeed,  no  undertakings,  no  adaptation  to 
new  conditions.  He  lacks  all  means  of  taking  care  of  him- 
self, and  perishes  of  hunger  with  food  under  his  nose. 

Now  substitute  men  for  dogs  and  pigeons,  and  substitute 
disease  or  drugs  for  the  operator,  and  you  have,  in  cases  of 


382  The  Origin  of  Volition 

varying  clearness,  cases  of  general  progressive  aboulia  in  man ; 
all  those  cases  in  which  consciousness  subsides  into  the  depths 
of  mere  vague  feltness,  so  to  speak,  or  sensations  coming  in 
and  movements  made  upon  them.  Two  typical  instances  may 
be  cited,  the  two  for  which  we  have  exact  observations.  One 
of  these  is  the  rather  obscure  phenomenon  of  'Jacksonian 
re-evolution,'  and  the  other  is  the  case,  equally  obscure  until 
very  recently,  of  hysteria. 

By  're-evolution'  is  meant  gradual  recovery  from  a  swoon 
or  fit  of  such  a  gross  character  that  the  mental  faculties  had 
given  way,  and  the  patient  had  become  all  but  unconscious. 
It  is  evident  that  in  such  cases,  in  which  the  recovery  is  com- 
paratively slow,  tests  may  be  applied  at  intervals  to  discover 
the  order  in  which  the  various  functions  return;  this  order 
will  evidently  represent  the  inverse  order  of  their  loss  in  the  fit, 
and  so  the  original  order  of  their  development. 

A  recent  case  reported  by  Pick1  furnishes  perhaps  the  most 
careful  and  detailed  observances  yet  made  on  the  re-evolution 
of  the  function  of  speech  —  a  function  which,  by  reason  of  its 
complexity,  lends  itself  to  recovery  by  stages.  Four  stages 
were  found  in  this  epileptic  patient's  recovery  from  apparent 
unconsciousness :  first,  no  response  whatever  to  words  spoken 
or  written ;  second,  the  parrot-like  repetition  of  words  heard 
(an  imitative  condition  called  echolalia;  the  man  could  strike 
a  match  only  when  he  saw  some  one  else  strike  one) ;  third, 
a  dazed  sort  of  reply  by  counter-questions;  and  fourth, 
intelligent  speech  with  voluntary  forming  of  sentences. 

The  evidence  from  such  cases  as  this  as  to  the  place  of 
volition  in  the  evolution  scale  is  self-evident.  The  first  form 
of  response,  echolalia,  is  simple  verbal  imitation,  i.e.  sensori- 
motor  suggestion  from  a  brain-level  below  the  cortex.  It 
involves  no  extended  associations.  The  next  stage  represents, 

1  Archiv  fur  Psychiatric,  XXII.,  Heft  3,  pp.  25  ff. 


Special  Evidence  383 

I  think,  a  groping  of  the  man  after  unity,  coherence,  co- 
ordination ;  just  as  the  child  gets  dissatisfied  with  his  simple 
imitations,  has  a  sense  of  dawning  capacity  to  identify,  com- 
pare, and  select,  of  a  tendency  to  be  a  willing  being;  and 
gropes  toward  the  next  stage  of  development.  Then  comes 
the  recovery  of  the  centres  and  their  connections.  The  man's 
associative  channels  open  up  and  the  currents  flow  in  and  out. 
He  remembers  his  word-meanings,  compares  them,  feels  the 
proper  energies  tingle  in  lip  and  tongue  in  co-ordinate  move- 
ment, and  so  reaches  voluntary  speech  again.  In  short, 
volition  in  speech  has  come  back  on  the  basis  of  simple  imi- 
tation, through  a  period  of  tentative  trial  and  effort  to  co- 
ordinate movements.  Could  there  be  a  reconstruction  in 
plainer  terms  of  the  child's  attainment  of  voluntary  speech 
through  imitations,  tentative  and  then  repeated ;  or  a  plainer 
demonstration  that  the  normal  way  of  volition  is  through 
imitation  ? 

The  other  case  —  the  general  phenomena  of  hysteria  in 
their  varied  combinations  —  may  be  spoken  of  only  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  since  the  quotation  of  observations  would  be  too 
lengthy.  For  authority,  let  us  appeal,  as  before  we  have  done, 
to  Professor  Pierre  Janet,  whose  works  are  more  psychological 
than  those  of  most  professed  alienists,  and  who,  unlike  many 
of  the  rest,  is  aware  that  there  are  philosophical  problems  in 
the  world,  no  less  than  medical.  At  the  end  of  a  recent  dis- 
cussion of  '  Definitions  of  Hysteria,'  he  concludes  by  himself 
defining  hysteria  thus : 1  "A  disease  especially  characterized  by 
mental  symptoms  of  which  the  principal  are  enfeeblement  of 
the  faculty  of  mental  synthesis;  retraction  of  the  field  of 
consciousness ;  the  disappearance  of  a  certain  number  of  ele- 
mentary phenomena  —  called  stigmata  —  from  consciousness 

1  'Quelques  Definitions  r&entes  de  PHyst&ie'  in  Arch,  de  Neurologic, 
Juin  et  Juillet,  1893. 


384  The  Origin  of  Volition 

and  from  personal  perception;  a  tendency 'to  the  perma- 
nent and  complete  division  of  personality;  the  formation 
of  many  independent  groups  of  phenomena ;  the  coexistence 
of  these  systems  with  each  other  or  their  alteration  by  each 
other,  giving  rise  to  crises,  somnambulisms,  subconscious 
actions;  and  finally,  through  the  defect  of  synthesis,  the 
formation  of  certain  parasitic  ideas  whose  development  is  so 
complete  and  independent  that  they  break  up  all  normal 
control  of  consciousness  and  manifest  themselves  in  various 
troubles  of  a  physical  and  accidental  sort." 

From  this  definition  and  from  the  description  of  the  phe- 
nomena by  Charcot  and  other  writers,  we  may  say  that  the 
outstanding  psychological  characteristics  of  this  sort  of 
malady  are:  (i)  ' enfeeblement  of  the  faculty  of  psychic  syn- 
thesis'; (2)  loss  of  control  and  direction  of  the  mental  life; 
(3)  the  breaking  up  of  the  material  of  personality,  and  the  pos- 
sible formation  of  several  independent  psychic  groups,  either 
successive  or  existing  together ;  (4)  an  enormous  development 
of  the  tendency  to  imitation ;  (5)  the  growth  of  mental  sug- 
gestibility, tending  to  the  complete  dominion  of  controlling 
ideas  and  imperative  movements,  all  of  which  contribute  to  a 
last  characteristic  —  (6)  general  and  progressive  aboulia. 

Here,  again,  we  note  at  once,  that  with  enfeeblement  of 
mental  synthesis  goes  increased  suggestibility,  which  takes 
the  form,  whenever  possible,  of  direct  imitation.  And,  fur- 
ther, we  find  the  process  of  re-evolution  striving  to  do  its 
proper  work  in  the  tendency  of  the  separate  groups  of  psychic 
facts  to  take  on  the  semblance  of  personality  by  partial 
synthesis.  As  James  puts  it,  they  'tend  to  personal  form.' 
What  is  this  but  the  reverse  way  of  mental  growth,  whose 
terms  are  in  order :  simple  suggestion,  —  sensori-  and  ideo- 
motor,  —  imitation,  synthesis,  which  last,  in  its  various  stages, 
illustrates  the  growing  success  of  effort,  and  the  growing  in- 


Special  Evidence  385 

dependence  of  the  one  great  synthesis  whose  pre-eminence 
stands  for  stable  personality  and  intelligent  volition? 

The  absence  of  effort  in  certain  cases  is  shown  in  the  fact 
that  the  patients  are  often  unable  to  learn  any  new  move- 
ments, although  they  can  perform,  in  response  to  a  suggestion, 
those  which  have  become  habits,1  —  just  the  condition  of  the 
child  before  its  first  'persistent'  imitations. 

A  further  interesting  confirmation  of  the  distinction  between 
voluntary  and  involuntary  imitation  is  seen  in  the  phenomena 
of  unconscious  writing,  from  which  the  hypothesis  of  '  secon- 
dary personality'  gets  some  support.  The  anaesthetic  hands 
of  certain  blindfolded  patients  respond  in  writing  appro- 
priately, either  in  lines  of  habit,  or  by  imitative  repetition. 
Not  only  are  the  movements  here  involuntary ;  they  are  also 
quite  unconscious.2  And  the  view  that  the  attention  and  the 
co-ordination  which  it  effects  are  the  real  vehicle  of  volition 
is  shown  in  the  negative  3  fact,  that  as  soon  as  the  patients  are 
allowed  to  see  the  limbs  in  question,  which  they  believe  they 
cannot  move,  no  response  whatever  from  these  limbs  can 
be  secured.  This  belongs  to  the  theory  of  'control'  taken  up 
in  a  later  connection.4  Furthermore,  the  anaesthetic  hand, 
hidden  behind  a  screen,  will  imitate  the  movements  made  by 
the  patient  voluntarily  with  the  unanaesthetic  hand,  giving 

1  Janet  (Aut.  psy.,  p.  64)  calls  this  condition,  on  the  memory  side,  'antero- 
grade  amnesia'  —  an  unfortunate  phrase,  I  think.  It  is  simply,  so  far  as 
action  is  concerned,  general  '  apraxia,'  or  the  inability  to  effect  the  synthesis 
necessary  for  a  movement. 

1  See  Binet  and  Fe're',  Arch,  de  Phys.,  1877,  II.,  pp.  339  ff.,  and 
Binet,  Alterations  oj  Personality. 

8  Negative,  i.e. ,  to  the  other  remarkable  case  of  patients  who  cannot  move 
the  limbs  unless  they  do  see  them.  In  the  cases  now  cited,  voluntary  move- 
ment is  impossible,  and  the  incapacity  is  extended  by  suggestion  to  the  invol- 
untary movements  of  the  organ  upon  which  the  attention  is  fixed.  For  the 
other,  contrasted,  cases  see  the  reference  given  in  the  next  note  but  one. 

•  See  Chap.  XV.,  §  4,  below. 

2C 


386  The  Origin  of  Volition 

what  may  be  called  acquired  'accompanying  movements.'  * 
And  yet  again,  the  anaesthetic  hand  traces  out,  when  a  pencil 
is  put  into  it,  and  it  is  left  undisturbed,  mental  pictures  as  they 
exist  in  the  subconsciousness  of  the  owner  of  the  hand  — 
what  I  have  called,  in  the  case  of  the  child,  simple  'tracery- 
imitation.'  The  development  of  this  tendency  under  the 
law  of  habit  accounts,  by  the  way,  for  all  the  'intelligent' 
results  of  automatic  writing. 

Cases  of  congenital  mental  defect,  of  which  idiocy  and 
imbecility  are  the  extremes,  teach  us  about  the  same  thing. 
Weak-minded  children  are  notably  different  from  other  chil- 
dren in  two  things :  the  difference  in  the  character  of  their 
early  movements,  and  the  difference  in  their  ability  to  learn 
new  movements.  In  regard  to  the  first  point :  their  move- 
ments are  abrupt,  undisciplined,  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the 
organic  happenings,  jerky,  and  essentially  unaccountable. 
The  normal  child  gets  disciplined  by  his  first  experiences,  and 
his  movements  show  the  subduing  and  regulating  effects  of  all 
kinds  of  suggestion.  But  the  child  which  we  call,  in  varying 
degrees,  'natural,'  is  not  so;  much  that  we  mean  by  ac- 
quired nervous  inhibition  is  wanting,  and  the  character  of  the 
movements  becomes  at  once  an  index  of  the  mental  state.  He 
imitates,  but  repeats  his  imitations  without  modification.  He 
lacks  voluntary  power  both  for  action  and  for  control. 

This  characteristic  leads  at  once  to  the  second :  the  child 
fails  to  learn.  He  progresses  as  far  as  the  natural  growth  of 
the  organism  carries  him.  All  his  senses  may  be  perfect ;  his 
vegetative  processes  normal ;  his  reflexes  good ;  his  native 
reactive  couples  responsive.  This  means,  in  general,  that  he 
grows  well  up  to  the  simple  imitative  stage ;  then  he  stops ! 
Stops  where,  in  the  reverse  process  of  unlearning,  the  hysteric 
and  hypnotic  patients  stop  !  He  gets  a  few  useful  associations 

1  Binet  and  F£r£,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  340-345. 


Special  Evidence  387 

drilled  into  him  by  force  of  habit.  He  may  come  to  do  the 
simpler  things  which  he  sees  others  do,  and  make  the  simpler 
word  sounds  which  others  make.  But  he  does  not  initiate 
anything,  does  not  learn  by  his  own  effort.  He  is  much  like 
the  brainless  pigeon.  Idiots  are  generally  very  imitative. 
Imbeciles  are  lower  still ;  if  they  get  any  form  in  the  sounds 
they  emit,  it  is  only  what  S£glas  calls  '  reflex  echolalia.' 

I  think  this  indicates  very  fairly,  in  these  poor  defec- 
tives, about  the  condition  of  things  which  we  have  found 
in  cases  of  hysterical  and  cataleptic  degeneracy.  Here  is 
the  same  lack  of  mental  synthesis,  so-called  'mental'  blind- 
ness, deafness,  dumbness,1  the  exaggeration  of  unruly  move- 
ments, inability  to  acquire  anything  new,  excessive  imitation, 
general  suggestibility.  The  idiot  lacks  the  'third -level'  co- 
ordination, just  as  all  the  rest  do.  Voluntary  inhibition  is 
gone,  and,  in  a  measure,  involuntary  inhibition  also.  At- 
tention is  weakened,  vacillating,  inconstant.  Hereditary 
defect  has  done,  in  this  case,  what  disease  has  done  in  the 
other  cases,  i.e.  it  has  drawn  a  sharp  line  between  action 
which  is  imitative  and  simple,  and  action  which  is  still  imi- 
tative, but  complex,  —  the  latter  alone  being  persistent, 
effortful,  acquisitive,  voluntary.  These  poor  creatures  have 
mental  images,  and  make  responses  to  them,  but  they  are 
unable,  in  Janet's  phrase,  d'eftectuer  la  synthhe? 

Passing  now  to  what  has  been  designated  partial  aboulia, 
we  have  to  consider  the  decay  or  destruction  of  particular 

1  The  expression  'mental  dumbness'  was  suggested  by  the  present  writer 
for  the  inability  to  speak  intelligently,  as  opposed  to  the  mere  ability  to 
imitate  sounds.     See  the  article,  '  Internal  Speech  and  Song,'  PhUos.  Review, 
II.,  1893,  p.  389.     See  also,  below,  Chap.  XIV.,  §  i,  p.  415. 

2  The  characteristics  of  the  idiot's  movements  are  given  by  Guicciardi, 
Zeiisch.  fur  Psychologic,  IV.,  p.  154,  as,  in  order,  progressive  inco-ordination 
of  voluntary  movement,  loss  of  voluntary  movement,  increased  imitation. 


388  The  Origin  of  Volition 

motor  functions,  asking  whether,  if  we  apply  the  law  that 
the  order  of  loss  is  the  inverse  of  that  of  development,  we 
find  evidence  for  our  theory  of  the  rise  of  volition.  This 
examination  can  best  be  made  in  connection  with  complex 
functions  or  acquisitions,  and  speech  and  handwriting  at 
once  suggest  themselves.  I  accordingly  have  to  cite  evidence 
from  aphasia  and  agraphia.  Other  functions  which  do  not 
involve  so  clearly  the  complex  co-ordinations  learned  by 
voluntary  effort  may  also  be  cited  in  their  place  as  we  proceed. 

It  may  be  well  to  give,  at  the  outset,  the  general  result  of 
the  detailed  examination  of  cases  of  such  troubles.  The 
order  of  acquisition  of  the  elements  of  speech  and  hand- 
writing is  this : 1  first,  in  the  stage  of  suggestive  reaction 
before  the  rise  of  conscious  imitation,  we  find  hearing  of 
sounds  with  some  very  simple  associations,  also  suggestive 
adaptation  of  movements  of  the  tongue,  hands,  etc.,  under 
the  direct  stimulus  of  associations,  pleasures,  and  pains, 
etc. ;  second,  in  the  stage  of  simple  imitation,  we  find  full 
recognition  of  objects  and  musical  tunes,  some  slight  power 
of  song  in  individual  children,  imperfect  articulation,  in- 
creasing co-ordination  of  movements,  though  still  without 
effort  or  volition ;  third,  in  the  epoch  of  persistent  imitation, 
we  find  full  understanding  of  speech,  the  rapid  acquisition  of 
co-ordinated  movements  in  speaking  and  writing,  and  also 
visual  sign  interpretation  which  leads  on  to  the  ability  to 
read. 

On  the  side  of  disease,  therefore,  we  should  expect,  if 
the  acquisition  proceeds  by  stages  so  well  marked,  that  at 
least  the  same  three  great  types  of  function  would  be  reason- 
ably independent  in  their  loss.  That  is,  we  should  find  that 
the  highest  type  of  function,  revealed  in  volition  and  conscious 
synthesis,  would  in  some  cases  be  lost  alone,  and  that  to  its 

1  Cf.  the  left  column  in  Table  X. 


Special  Evidence  389 

loss  might  then  be  added  that  of  the  function  which  corresponds 
to  perception  and  simple  imitative  adaptation.  Finally,  in  the 
most  fundamental  derangement  of  all,  even  the  degree  of 
acquisition  represented  by  direct  imitation  and  reflex  speech, 
etc.,  should  be  impaired  along  with  the  two  higher  kinds. 

Our  expectations  are  so  clearly  fulfilled  in  current  inter- 
pretations of  defects  in  the  active  life,1  that  the  very  nomen- 
clature of  the  subject  gives  us  words  for  these  very  distinc- 
tions. Loss  of  the  first  type  is  called,  as  we  have  seen, 
psychic  blindness,  deafness,  etc.,  according  as  one  sense  or 
another  is  affected,  issuing  in  associative  ataxia  or  aphasia. 
The  term  dyslogia  has  been  applied  to  this  state  by  Se'glas. 
It  has  equal  application  to  various  functions,  but  applies 
especially  to  speech.  The  second  stage  has  had,  if  not 
equally  general  recognition,  equally  happy  characterization 
by  the  same  author,  who  calls  defects  of  speech  of  this  general 
nature  dysphasia.  It  is  aphasia  of  the  sensory  or  motor  type, 
due  to  the  loss  of  a  specific  kind  of  sensory  or  motor  memory 
through  a  lesion  in  a  specific  centre.  Finally,  the  greatest 
defect  of  speech  is  dyslalia,  or  aphasia  due  to  lesions  in  the 
lower  centres. 

We  may  now,  before  going  into  more  detail,  draw  up  a 
table  showing  these  functions,  and  the  corresponding  defects 
of  the  three  great  classes  described,  using  the  terms  current 
for  the  function  of  speech,  but  bearing  in  mind  the  general 
application  of  the  divisions  themselves  to  complex  motor 
acquisitions  in  general.  See  Table  X. 

The  main  point  in  discussion  —  the  origin  of  Volition  — 
is  isolated  in  the  question  as  to  the  distinction  between 
dyslogia  and  dysphasia.  The  question  is  this:  Do  we  find 
that  whenever  the  mind  is  impaired  to  the  degree  designated, 
in  respect  of  special  acts,  by  the  phrase  amnesia,  —  the  loss 

1  Cf.  the  right  column  in  Table  X. 


390 


The  Origin  of  Volition 


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Special  Evidence  391 

of  some  function  demanding  spontaneous  co-ordinated 
memories,  and  action  in  view  of  such  co-ordinated  memo- 
ries, —  effective  volitions  are  then  impaired,  while  purely 
sensori-motor  action  remains?  In  other  words,  do  these 
kinds  of  aphasia  —  speaking  of  speech  in  particular  —  show 
a  functional  line  between  persistent  effort  and  simple  imita- 
tion? 

In  support  of  the  truthfulness  of  the  exhibit  from  pathol- 
ogy made  in  the  table  I  may  make  certain  observations :  — 

Among  the  numerous  schematic  diagrams  which  have 
been  proposed  to  illustrate  aphasia  in  its  different  forms, 
that  of  Lichtheim  has  had  most  recognition.1  It  is  not  my 
purpose  to  add  to  these  constructions,  which  have  represented, 
in  part  at  least,  the  individual  interpretations  of  the  particular 
writers.  The  'motor  square'  which  has  been  found  service- 
able in  the  preceding  sections,  presents  a  modification  of 
Lichtheim's  scheme  in  the  one  direction  in  which  current 
psychology  finds  some  of  its  most  important  problems;  and 
it  thus  enables  us  to  bring  the  problems  to  aphasia  into  con- 
nection with  general  psychological  theory.  Lichtheim's  dia- 
gram, Fig.  XVII.,  a.,  gives  no  means  of  distinguishing  between 
the  centre  of  muscular  sensations  and  memories,  the  kinaes- 
thetic  centre,  on  one  side,  and  the  true  motor  centre,  the 
innervation  centre,  on  the  other  side;  but  includes  both, 
under  the  one  symbol  M.  In  my  'motor  square'  diagram, 
Fig.  XVII.,  b.,  these  two  possibly  distinct  areas,  and  perfectly 
distinct  functions,  are  distinguished  (me  and  mp),  thus 
making  it  possible  to  represent,  diagrammatically,  a  distinc- 
tion current  in  psychology.  The  distinction  is  required  in 
the  interpretation  of  cases  of  aphasia.  Lichtheim  himself 
admits  this,  and  constructs  an  awkward  supplement  to  his 

1  Brain,  Part  XXVIII.,  January,  1885,  p.  436  (his  Fig.  i). 


392  The  Origin  of  Volition 

diagram  when  he  comes  to  interpret  certain  individual  cases.1 
If  the  '  motor  square '  be  squeezed  together,  so  that  the  oppo- 
site corners,  me  and  tnp,  coincide,  it  then  becomes  identical 
with  Lichtheim's.  The  isolation  of  mp,  however,  is  required 
by  all  the  evidence  now  accumulated,  which  goes  to  show 
that  movements  may  be  stimulated  directly  from  the  sensory 
centres  (sg;  sight,  hearing,  etc.),  or  directly  from  the  higher 
co-ordinating  centre  (cc,  Lichtheim's  B)  —  supposing  it  to 
exist,  as  all  the  diagrams,  interpreting  the  facts  functionally, 


r 


J»  «  mt 

a.  Scheme  of  Lichtheim.  b.  Motor  Square.1 

FIG.  XVII. 

represent  —  without  necessary  stimulation  of  the  kinaesthetic 
cortical  centre  (we).  This  class  of  cases,  now  very  generally 
accepted,  has  no  separate  recognition,  I  think,  in  any  of  the 
schemes  except  the  'motor  square.' 

Interpreting  the  'motor  square'  in  terms  of  the  three 
great  functional  classes  of  motor  acquisitions,  we  may  say 

1  Loc.  tit.,  pp.  437,  443,  451  (his  Figs.  2,  4,  5). 

*  For  the  other  symbols,  see  Fig.  IX.  My  use  of  this  diagram,  before  I 
saw  Lichtheim's,  in  class-room  demonstration  of  the  'motor'  problems  in 
psychology,  has  proved  it  so  convenient  that  I  have  ventured  to  print  it  in 
my  text-books.  Most  of  the  diagrams  proposed  by  others  are  intended  to 
illustrate  the  different  sensory  areas  which  contribute  to  speech  (Charcot's, 
KussmauPsin  Storungen  der  Sprache,  p.  182,  etc.);  these  centres  are  all 
bunched  in  Lichtheim's  and  mine,  the  purpose  being  to  illustrate  types  of 
motor  disturbance,  rather  than  particular  local  lesions, 


Special  Evidence  393 

that  aboulia,  and  the  equivalent  dyslogia,  result  from  some 
disturbance  in  cc,  or  its  connections,  whereby  this  co-ordi- 
nating centre  (Lichtheim's  Begriffscentrum,  B)  is  cut  off, 
either  (i),  from  the  motor  discharge  centre  mp,  for  the  par- 
ticular function  in  question,  or  (2),  from  the  centres  (sg) 
from  which  the  stimulus  or  material  of  co-ordination  comes. 
All  the  varieties  of  amnesia  fall  under  (2),  in  so  far  as  the 
particular  memory  pictures  whose  absence  constitutes  the 
amnesia  observed,  are  necessary  to  the  concentration  of  at- 
tention by  which  the  voluntary  performance  of  the  action 
in  question  is  brought  about.  That  is,  it  is  possible  that  a 
particular  case  of  inability  to  employ  intelligent  speech  may 
be  due,  apart  from  injury  to  cc,  to  a  lesion  which  breaks  any 
of  the  three  connections  cc,  mp ;  cc,  sg,  mp ;  or  cc,  me,  mp. 
The  other  case  (i)  includes  instances  in  which  the  failure  to 
speak  is  due  to  lack  of  ability  to  get  the  attention  fixed  upon 
anything  which  would  represent  the  movement  itself  apart 
from  both  kinaesthetic  impressions  and  special  sense  memories. 
Such  cases  are  cited  in  proof  of  innervation  sensations  and 
memories  due  to  the  condition  of  the  motor  discharge  centre 
itself.1 

The  other  cases  of  possible  lesion  in  this  highest  region, 
involving  aboulia  only,  represent  respectively  sensory  amnesic 
aphasia  of  the  several  kinds  known  as  visual,  auditory,  etc., 
and  motor  amnesic  aphasia.  It  is  evident  that  a  break  in 
the  line  cc,  sg  would  accomplish  both  of  these ;  that  is,  the 
patient  would  be  unable  to  speak  voluntarily,  however  he 
might  preserve  all  his  special  centres,  both  sensory  and  motor. 

1  So  Waller's  region  (Brain,  XIV.,  p.  179,  and  XV.,  pp.  380  ff.),  which  is 
called  by  him  the  'locus'  of  subjective  as  well  as  objective  fatigue,  would,  if 
cut  off  from  its  connection  with  the  co-ordinating  centre,  produce  aphasia, 
even  when  the  kinaesthetic  sensation  series  were  all  intact.  This  possibility, 
whatever  we  may  think  of  its  probability,  it  is  impossible  to  represent  on 
Lichtheim's  or  any  other  of  the  earlier  diagrams. 


394  The   Origin   of  Volition 

This  is  the  case  where  a  patient  is  unable  to  speak  or  write 
spontaneously,  although  he  can  repeat  or  write  words  which 
he  hears  or  sees,  written  or  printed  (using  the  line  me,  mp 
or  sg,  mp}.  It  is  possible,  however,  since  the  symbol  sg 
represents  the  various  sensory  seats  taken  together,  that  a 
function  like  speech  might  in  some  cases  not  be  impaired 
when  a  particular  connection  cc,  sg  is  cut,  since  the  attention 
might  be  stimulated  by  a  discharge  from  an  alternative  sen- 
sory seat.  This  alternative  arrangement  gives  its  validity  to 
the  distinction  between  the  so-called  types  of  speech,  as 
auditory,  visual,  motor,  etc. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  a  certain  very  important 
class  of  functions  would  be  left  to  a  man  of  such  partial 
aboulia.  First,  he  might  be  able  to  perform  a  voluntary 
function  when  his  attention  was  supplied  with  some  indirect 
stimulus :  so  the  cases  in  which  voluntary  movement  is  pos- 
sible only  when  the  eyes  are  open.  Or,  second,  he  might  be 
able  to  perform  other  voluntary  co-ordinations  in  which  the 
particular  class  of  memories  now  cut  off  are  not  essential 
elements;  and  third,  he  might  be  able  to  perform,  reflexly 
or  by  suggestion,  imitation,  etc.,  functions  which  he  could  not 
perform  voluntarily. 

All  of  these  deductions  respecting  aboulic  patients  are 
securely  established  by  pathological  facts.  The  last-men- 
tioned is  the  critical  distinction  for  our  purposes,  and  some 
cases  illustrating  it  may  be  cited.  They  are  selected  with 
two  especial  points  in  view:  first,  as  showing  the  fact  of 
conscious  simple  imitation  in  patients  to  whom  all  effortful 
performance  of  the  actions  had  become  impossible;  and, 
second,  as  showing  the  inability  of  such  patients  to  learn 
again  the  function  which  is  lost,  without  resorting  to  a 
painstaking  repetition  by  imitation  of  a  new  kind  of 
motor  association.  By  this  means  such  a  patient  may  train 


Special  Evidence  395 

his    attention   over  again  upon  a  new   class   of   memory 
images. 

1.  Case  of  Pick  already  cited.1    This  man  was  able  to 
strike  a  match  only  when  he  saw  the  proper  movements  of 
another  (pp.  764  and  768).     He  echoed  words  he  heard, 
and  he  even  repeated  with  the  questioning  inflection  ques- 
tions addressed  to  himself  (pp.  568-569  and  771-773);  but 
he  had  lost  all  spontaneous  speech.     Pick  interprets  the  case 
(p.  774)  as  one  of  '  transcortical  word-deaf  ness '  described  by 
Lichtheim  and  Wernicke,  which  arises  from  a  lesion  of  the 
line  BM  in  Lichtheim's  diagram,  or  of  the  line  cc,  sg  in  the 
'motor  square.'     It  is  a  case  of  verbal  amnesic  aphasia,  or 
dyslogia  involving  aboulia,  but  not  dysphasia. 

2.  Case  of  Pitres,2  showing  agraphia,  in  which  'tracery- 
imitation'    remained.     This   case   also   shows   the   possible 
mutual  isolation  of  speech  and  writing,  inasmuch  as  there 
was  no  aphasia.     Here  we  have  a  lesion  of  the  tract  cc,  sg 
(Lichtheim's  BM)  for  writing  movements  only,  the  lesion  not 
extending  to  the  corresponding  tracts  for  speech  movements. 

3.  A  different  complication  is  shown  in  another  case  cited 
by  Ross,8  in  which  deep-seated  aphasia  (dysphasia)  is  asso- 
ciated with  alexia,  without  agraphia.     This  patient's  speech 
movements  were  probably  dependent  upon  the  visual  word 
centre  for  stimulation,  while  his  writing  movements  were  not 
so  dependent ;  consequently  alexia  (lesion  of  the  visual  word 
centre)  carried  with  it  amnesic  aphasia,  but  not  agraphia. 

4.  Case  cited  by  Lichtheim.4    It  shows  the  preservation 
of  a  variety  of  simple  imitative  or  ideo-motor  suggestive  re- 
actions, while  the  corresponding  voluntary  functions  were 

1  Archiv  fur  Psychiatric,  XXII.,  Heft  3. 

1  Cited  by  Ross,  Wood's  Medical  Monographs,  Vol.  VI.,  No.  i,  1890, 
pp.  152-153. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  197-199- 

*  Brain,  VII.,  1891,  p.  437. 


396  The  Origin  of  Volition 

lost.  The  patient  could  copy  handwriting,  write  to  dicta- 
tion, repeat  words  heard,  and  read  aloud,  but  he  could  not 
write  nor  speak  spontaneously.  It  is  accordingly  a  case  of 
amnesic  aphasia  and  agraphia,  involving  loss  of  the  volun- 
tary functions  only.  This  case  is  a  very  fine  illustration  of 
my  thesis,  inasmuch  as  it  shows  the  action  of  the  principle 
of  Habit,  whereby  activities  at  first  learned  by  persistent 
effort  have  become  ideo-motor,  so  that  it  is  only  their  volun- 
tary performance,  and  the  ability  to  learn  more,  which  are  im- 
paired by  the  injury. 

Again  there  are  cases  which  show  a  finer  application  still 
of  the  law  of  Habit,  in  connection  with  each  of  the  functions 
of  voluntary  movement.  It  is  impossible  to  say  beforehand 
just  how  much  or  how  little  of  what  is,  as  a  whole,  an  action 
learned  by  imitative  effort  still  involves  voluntary  control  at 
any  time.  A  great  part  of  any  one  of  our  habitual  actions 
is  regularly  under  subcortical  or  ideo-motor  control,  except 
for  inhibitions  or  unusual  exercises  of  it. 

We  find  that  speech,  for  example,  is  subject  to  a  great 
many  finer  degrees  of  impairment.  Sentence-making  may 
be  impossible,  while  the  words  taken  alone  may  be  spoken. 
Words  again  may  be  impossible,  while  the  simple  syllabic 
sounds  may  be  quite  possible.  Certain  classes  of  words, 
as  nouns  and  names,  may  disappear,  while  other  classes  of 
words  remain.  And  finally,  all  that  the  patient  may  be 
capable  of  is  some  single  oft-repeated  sound.1  In  all  this 
we  see  reversed  the  child's  progress  from  simple  imitation 
of  sounds,  to  effortful  repetition,  then  to  the  co-ordination 
of  sounds  or  syllables  into  words,  then  to  imitations  of  short 

1  See  Kussmaul,  Storungen  der  Sprache,  pp.  9  and  164.  Also  Bateman, 
On  Aphasia,  p.  75.  Ribot  traces  this  progress,  as  a  phenomenon  of  memory, 
Maladies  de  la  Memoire,  pp.  132  S. ;  cf.  Brazier,  Revue  Philosophique, 
October,  1892,  p.  364. 


Special  Evidence  397 

sentences  which  he  hears,  and  finally  to  spontaneous  com- 
binations of  his  own  to  express  his  meaning. 

A  similar  series  of  facts  is  found  also  in  agraphia,  or  de- 
rangements of  writing;  stages  in  which  there  are,  in  order, 
certain  defects  becoming  more  and  more  grave.  There  is 
trembling  handwriting,  failure  to  write  sentences,  when  cer- 
tain words  can  still  be  written ;  failure  to  write  words,  while 
musical  notation,  or  single  letters,  or  both,  may  still  be  writ- 
ten ;  failure  to  write  letters,  while  figures *  may  still  be  written ; 
failure  to  write  anything  except  to  dictation ; 2  and  finally, 
failure  to  write  at  all  without  copies,  although  copies  may 
still  be  traced.  Here  is  retrogression  from  the  highest  co- 
ordination of  hand  movements,  down  to  the  tracery-imita- 
tion already  described ; 3  the  final  stage  being  that  in  which 
meaningless  scrawls  show  the  absence  of  all  central  co- 
ordination.4 

So  in  the  case  of  alexia,  or  impairment  of  reading;  a 
function  which  may  be  destroyed  without  impairing  either 
speech  or  writing.5  It  may  extend  to  the  reading  of  hand- 
writing only  (even  the  patient's  own  8) ;  or  to  reading  of 
music  notation  only ; 7  or  to  all  printing  and  handwriting 
except  numerical  figures;8  or  to  all  but  drawings  and  out- 
lines of  objects;  or  to  all  signs  except  music  notation;  or, 
finally,  to  all  interpretation  of  visual  signs;  in  which  case 


1  Case  of  Dejerine,  Com.  Rend.  Soc.  de  Biologic,  Feb.  27,  1892;  cf.  Brain, 
1893,  p.  318. 

z  Lichtheim's  case,  Brain,  VII.,  p.  447.  *  Above,  Chap.  V. 

<  See  Starr's  case,  Medical  Record  (N.Y.),  XXXIV.,  1888,  p.  500. 

5  Alexia  without  agraphia  is  rare ;  but  see  the  remarkable  case  of  Dejerine 
cited  in  the  second  note  above.  Agraphia  came  on  subsequently  in  conse- 
quence of  a  second  lesion  found  at  the  autopsy. 

8  Oppenheim,  Charite  Annalen,  XVII. 

7  Ballet,  quoted  by  Wallaschek. 

8  See  Glashey's  case,  Archiv  jiir  Psychiatric,  XVI.,  1885,  p.  66x. 


398  The    Origin  of  Volition 

only  simple  sensations  of  sight  remain,  and  the  patient 
reaches  the  condition  called  psychic  blindness.1 

Recent  observations  show  a  corresponding  analysis  by 
disease  of  the  faculty  of  musical  expression.  The  power  of 
playing  on  instruments,  or  singing  by  note,  may  be  lost, 
while  familiar  selections  may  still  be  executed  from  memory ; 
and,  when  the  disease  has  developed  further,  an  air  becomes 
impossible  from  memory,  but  may  still  be  executed  by  the 
imitation  of  another's  performance.2  Oppenheim  cites  the 
case  of  a  patient  who  could  not  sing  until  the  words  of  a 
familiar  song  were  spoken  to  him,3  although  he  could  not 
repeat  the  words;  and  Franckl  cites  the  case  of  a  patient 
with  right-sided  hemiplegia,  agraphia,  alexia,  and  aphasia  to 
the  extent  of  echolalia,  who  yet  sang  one  song,  but  without 
the  words.*  These  last  two  cases 5  illustrate  purely  sugges- 
tive or  automatic  singing.6 

The  connection  between  speech  and  music  which  has  been 
spoken  of  above,7  may  also  be  serviceable  in  another  way. 
Patients  have  been  reported  who  could  speak  only  by  singing 
the  words.  In  such  cases  they  may  be  able  thus  to  understand 
the  words,8  or  even  yet  not  to  understand  them.  The  latter 
illustrates  the  reflex  or  suggestive  movements  of  speech,  which 

1  Cf.  the  analysis  into  five  stages  of  defect  in  reading,  by  Weissenberg 
Archiv  jiir  Psychiatric,  XXII.,  1891,  p.  442. 

2  See  Brazier,  loc.  cit.,  and  Case  3  of  Oppenheim,  Charite  Annalen,  XIII., 
1888,  p.  354,  quoted  by  Wallaschek,  Zeitschrift  jiir  Psychologic,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  8. 

3  Loc.  cit.,  XIII.,  p.  358;   cf.  also  Wallaschek,  loc.  cit.,  p.  12. 

*  Franckl-Hochwart,  Deutsch.  Zeitsch.  jiir  Nervenheilkunde,  1891,  I., 
p.  287. 

6  See  also  another  of  Oppenheim's  (a  man  who  could  not  read,  but  yet 
sang  off  correctly  a  printed  musical  score),  loc.  cit.,  p.  364 ;  and  yet  another, 
of  a  boy  who  sang  a  tune  in  his  eleventh  month,  before  he  learned  to  speak 
(Wallaschek,  loc.  cit.,  p.  13). 

8  See  my  own  case  above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  5,  ad  fin. 

1  Chap.  IV.,  §  2. 

8  Case  referred  to  by  Starr,  Psychological  Review,  I.,  1894,  p.  92. 


Special  Evidence  399 

may  be  stimulated  through  the  centre  of  the  understanding  of 
music,  whether  it  be  visual  or  auditory.  Gowers  accounts 
for  this  latter  case  by  the  observation  that  the  text,  in  musical 
execution,  is  simply  a  convenience,  not  an  essential,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  words  is,  in  learning,  entirely  subordinated 
to  the  correct  music.1  It  is  again  essential  to  remark  here,  — 
in  order  to  keep  our  argument  clearly  in  view,  —  that  there 
may  be  aboulia  for  musical  execution,  leaving  reflex  or  imi- 
tative execution  intact ;  but  that  in  such  cases  no  new  musical 
acquisitions  can  be  made.2 

V.  Still  another  class  of  facts  may  be  cited  as  affording 
evidence  in  favour  of  this  view  of  the  rise  of  volition ;  the 
facts  of  brain  development,  as  comparative  embryology  and 
early  brain  anatomy  supply  them.  Two  very  general  ques- 
tions arise  in  view  of  our  present  topic :  we  are  interested  to 
know,  first,  what  kind  of  motor  apparatus  the  child  is  born 
with ;  and,  second,  in  what  order  he  adds  to  his  motor  equip- 
ment in  the  way  of  activities  which  may  be  described  as  vol- 
untary. In  answer  to  the  first  question,  we  may  say  without 
hesitation  that  the  child  begins  life  without  the  necessary  ap- 
paratus for  any  voluntary  action  whatever.  He  lacks  two 


1  Diseases  of  the  Brain,  1885,  p.  122. 

2  The  final  loss  of  the  imitative  function  as  involved  in  gesture,  general 
movement,  etc.  (so-called  amimia;  see  Kussmaul,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  159  ff.,  and 
Ballet,  loc.  cit.,  p.  75),  and  its  amnesic  phase  need  not  be  dwelt  upon.     Amimia 
reduces  the  patient  to  the  stage  of  pre-imitative  suggestion,  again  confirming 
the  reverse  parallel  between  order  of  acquisition  and  order  of  loss.     A  case 
recently  reported  by  Mills  in  Philada.  Hasp.  Reports,  1893,  brings  out  the 
facts  clearly.     A  patient,  having  right  hemiplegia  and  motor  aphasia,  with- 
out word-deafness,  lost  all  expression  by  movements  of  any  kind,  except  that 
he  uttered  'la-la'  over  and  over,  and  could  still  laugh  when  pleased.     The 
expressive  movements  which  he  retained  longest  —  apart  from  those  men- 
tioned—  were  the  'nod'  and  'shake'  of  head  to  signify  'yes'  and  'no.'     As 
we  would  expect,  facial  expression  usually  remains  intact,  even  in  cases  of 
amimia  which  involves  all  voluntary  pantomime,  gesture,  etc. 


400  The  Origin  of  Volition 

very  important,  indeed  essential,  things:  associative  connec- 
tions between  the  lower  central  organs  and  the  cortex,  with 
all  traces  of  medullated  nerve  fibre ;  and,  second,  his  cere- 
brum has  not  developed  the  different  local  centres  and 
their  connections  with  one  another.  So  far  there  is  no 
dispute.1 

In  regard  to  the  second  inquiry,  —  the  time  and  order  of 
development  of  complete  activities,  —  experimental  evi- 
dence is  largely  lacking  and  anatomical  evidence  is  notoriously 
uncertain.  Putting  the  anatomical  evidence,  however,  with 
that  of  comparative  physiology,  we  see  ground  to  justify  us 
in  the  position  that  volition  is  a  matter  of  cortical  co-ordina- 
tion, occurring  possibly  about  the  sixth  to  eighth  month, 
after  simple  imitation  has  become  common  and  varied.  It 
should  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  —  lest  this  seem  like 
special  pleading,  in  view  of  the  very  scanty  evidence  at  hand, 
—  that  it  is  not  a  question  here  of  what  is  the  true  hypothesis, 
but  of  what  alternatives  may  be  true. 

The  main  facts  now  known  may  be  thrown  together  very 
briefly.  Soltmann 2  found  that  young  dogs  did  not  respond 
to  stimulation  of  the  cortical  motor  centres  until  nine  days 
old,  i.e.  until  two  days  after  the  eyes  were  open;  then  the 
reaction  came  first  only  from  the  fore  paw.  The  same  re- 
sults were  shown  by  looking  for  laming  in  the  dog's  move- 
ments after  extirpation  of  the  motor  centres.  Further,  Solt- 
mann, in  considering  the  analogies  of  structure,  finds  volun- 
tary action  in  the  child  beginning  from  the  middle  to  the  end 
of  the  first  quarter-year,  and  that  it  develops  first  for  the  arm, 
then  hand,  and  last  for  the  leg  (the  dog's  hind  paw  was  quite 
lawless  —  regellos  —  in  its  responses  to  stimulation  as  late 
as  the  sixth  month).  These  deductions  are  accepted  by 

1  Foster,  Preyer,  Bastian,  Soltmann,  Meynert. 

*  Jahrbuch  fur  Kinder heilkunde,  IX.,  1875,  pp.  115  ff. 


Special  Evidence  401 

Vierordt.1  Further,  Soltmann  finds  that  the  child  does  not 
get  the  eyelid-touch  reflex,  which  is  a  cortical  reflex,  till  its 
seventh  or  eighth  week. 

Again,  authorities  have  shown  that  the  composition  of  the 
brain  is  not  favourable  to  cortical  action  until  the  seventh 
month.  The  nerve  sheath  is  absent  in  the  brain,  the  quantity 
of  water  is  very  large  as  compared  with  the  later  brain  con- 
dition,2 the  necessary  fibres  have  not  developed  between  the 
motor  cortex  and  the  striate  bodies  (Vierordt),  and  certain 
cells  then  undergo  changes  making  them  comparable  to  the 
voluntary  cells.3  Meynert 4  has  found  further  lack  of  prepa- 
ration in  the  nerve  courses  of  voluntary  action  in  the  human 
infant  of  four  months.  As  to  the  difference  between  the  young 
dog  and  the  human  infant,  Ferrier  says,  in  discussing  Solt- 
mann's  results,  "The  degree  of  development  and  control  over 
movements  which  a  puppy  reaches  in  ten  days  or  a  fortnight 
are  not  attained  by  the  human  infant  under  a  year  or  more."  5 
Further,  if  we  suppose  that  in  the  child,  as  in  the  dog,  the 
sight  function  is  the  first  to  develop  its  connections  suffi- 
ciently to  stimulate  to  voluntary  action,  we  may  fall  back 
upon  the  researches  of  Flechsig,  showing  that  fibres  from  the 
sight  centres  in  the  occipital  cortex  do  not  begin  to  appear 
in  the  child  until  the  second  or  third  month.  Bernheim 
quotes  Parrot  to  the  effect  that  the  nervous  apparatus  is  not 
entirely  ready  for  voluntary  action  until  toward  the  end  of 
the  ninth  month. 

However  uncertain  some  of  these  detailed  observations 
and  deductions  may  be,  it  is  nevertheless  easy  to  strike  fair 

1  Vierordt's  Lehrbuch  der  Kinderkrankheiten,  Bd.  I.,  p.  420. 

2  Wiesbach,  Archiv  jiir  Psychiatric,  II.,  III. 

8  Jastrowicz,  Parrot  (Arch,  de  Physiologic,  I.,  530  ff.),  Virchow. 
*  Cited  by  Soltmann,  loc.  cit. 
5  Functions  of  the  Brain,  zd  edition,  p.  364. 
2  D 


402  The  Origin  of  Volition 

limits  inside  of  which  we  may  say  conclusions  are  safe.  Let 
us  say,  therefore,  all  allowances  being  made  for  differences 
between  man  and  dog,  and  for  errors  of  observation,  that 
voluntary  action  in  the  child  arises  and  develops  to  perfection 
gradually,  in  connection  with  single  functions  separately, 
between  about  the  fifth  and  ninth  months;  that  the  hand 
becomes  first  capable  of  voluntary  use,  and  that  its  use  occurs 
first  in  connection  with  stimulation  through  the  eye. 

Even  with  this  very  modest  outcome,  we  find  several  in- 
teresting side-lights  upon  our  results  already  arrived  at  in 
earlier  connections. 

1.  Volition  seems  to  come  about  the  time  of  advent  of  sug- 
gestive reactions  of  the  consciously  imitative  kind. 

2.  It  arises  first  in  connection  with  the  sight-hand-move- 
ment reaction,  a  result  which  we  have  already  had  reason  to 
anticipate.     This  seems  to  give  some  justification  both  to  the 
use  of  the  hand  in  connection  with  eye  stimulations  of  colour, 
etc.,  in  the  'dynamogenic  method'  of  study  which  we  have 
been  pursuing,  and  also  to  the  view  that  sight  (with  hearing) 
goes  ahead  of  the  other  senses  in  stimulating  to  the  higher 
co-ordinating  processes  of  the  organism.     This  means,  in 
my  jargon,  that  they  are  the  avenues  of  greatest  progress  and 
attainment  in  the  'circular'  form  of  reaction,  the  'organic 
imitation,'  by  which  accommodation  comes  about.     So  it  is 
no  accident  that  they  are  the  most  imitative  of  the  senses, 
when  imitation  becomes  conscious. 

3.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  we  found  that  the  tendency 
to  use  the  right  hand  more  than  the  left  began  (allowing  for 
the  differences  in  children)  about  the  sixth  to  the  eighth  month. 
Comparing  this  with  the  result  given  above,  that  the  arm  gets 
ready  for  voluntary  use  before  any  other  member,  and  about  the 
seventh  month,  it  seems  possible  to  surmise  that  one  motor 
arm  centre  gets  started  before  the  other,  and  more  vigorously, 


Special  Evidence  403 

in  its  preparation  for  voluntary  action ;  and  that  the  use  of 
the  right  hand  in  preference  to  the  left  is  evidence,  at  this  first 
stage,  of  just  this  preparation  going  on  in  the  left  hemisphere. 
As  the  speech  function  follows  this  up  pretty  closely,  begin- 
ning to  be  slightly  voluntary  in  the  shape  of  verbal  imitations 
about  the  eighth  or  ninth  month,  the  idea  we  had  earlier, 
that  voluntary  speech  proceeds  upon  an  earlier  predominant 
dextral  function,  gets,  at  any  rate,  no  contradiction.1 

VI.  I  need  not  take  much  space  to  point  out,  as  a  final 
piece  of  evidence,  that  the  hypnotic  condition  shows  a  line 
drawn,  in  a  most  unmistakable  way,  just  between  imitation 
which  is  suggestion  under  the  reign  of  habit,  and  imitation 
which  involves  accommodation  and  volition.  The  theory  of 
hypnotism  now  most  widely  current,  under  the  name  of  the 
'suggestion  theory,'  amounts  to  a  direct  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  the  somnambule  is  an  abnormally  good 
imitator.  Spontaneity,  synthesis,  self-direction,  these  are 
gone;  but  these  are  volition.  The  somnambule  never 
learns  anything  new.  He  is  always  satisfied  with  what 
he  imitates.  His  critical  attitudes,  his  criteria  of  belief, 
are  all  taken  from  him.  The  careful  examination  of  the  facts 
of  hypnosis,  with  the  view  of  volition  now  advanced,  in  mind, 
will  convince  any  one,  I  think,  that  the  line  of  division 
between  suggestion  and  volition  is  where  we  have  placed  it. 

And  the  limits  of  the  somnambule's  suggestibility  show  the 
way  out  of  his  dilemma  very  plainly;  the  way  nature  has 

1  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  both  Soltmann  found  with  young  dogs  and 
v.  Gudden  with  a  young  rabbit,  that  the  motor  centre  of  one  hemisphere  may 
control  both  the  right  and  the  left  limb  in  the  first  two  months  or  more. 
Soltmann  kept  a  young  dog  alive  a  number  of  weeks  after  its  left  fore  leg 
centre  had  been  removed,  and  succeeded  in  getting  movements  of  both  the 
fore  paws  by  stimulating  the  proper  centre  in  the  right  hemisphere.  Such 
double  contraction  from  stimulating  one  side  failed  with  a  grown  dog,  as  it 
commonly  does  in  other  instances.  Soltmann,  loc.  tit.,  pp.  128-131. 


404  The  Origin  of  Volition 

actually  taken  in  the  development  of  the  child  and  in  the 
series  of  animal  forms.  When  the  suggested  course  comes 
into  hard  collision  with  the  root-habits,  sentiments,  realities, 
of  his  nature,  —  his  modesty,  his  veracity,  his  self-interests,  — 
then  he  may  be  aroused  to  a  kind  of  hesitation.  He  delays, 
avoids,  perhaps  refuses  to  act  upon  the  suggestion.  This 
reproduces  exactly  the  condition  in  the  child's  consciousness 
which  we  have  called  'deliberative  suggestion.' *  The  child 
has  to  reconcile  seeming  irreconcilables,  to  violate  his  nature 
sometimes.  And  it  is  just  in  the  stress  of  such  issues  among 
the  suggestive  influences  that  move  him,  that  he  gets  the  higher 
form  of  conscious  plurality  of  motives  which  his  volition  goes 
out  to  unite  in  one. 

§  5.  Variations  in  the  Rise  of  Volition:  Self-imitation 

It  is  now  time  to  ask  whether  the  requisites  to  volition  in 
the  child  may  arise  in  another  way  than  by  the  imitation  of 
external  movements,  sounds,  etc. 

We  find  present,  indeed,  in  the  child  certain  congenital 
tendencies  which  have  arisen  in  the  process  of  development  — 
tendencies  to  act  in  certain  ways,  to  pursue  certain  classes  of 
objects,  to  be  satisfied  with  certain  gratifications,  and  to  urge 
himself  toward  them.  The  case  of  volition  is  not  narrowed 
down,  as  would  seem  to  be  the  case  in  the  typical  instance 
figured  above,2  which  seems  in  effect  to  make  the  child  ready 
for  all  suggestions  which  come,  and  equally  ready  for  all. 
On  the  contrary,  he  has  appetites,  instincts,  impulses ;  and  it 
would  not  be  surprising  if  we  should  find  that  these  may  pre- 
cipitate him  before  the  time  into  a  certain  unready  choice 
or  a  certain  conflict  of  choices. 

Moreover,  the  principle  of  'organic  imitation'  has  shown 

1  Above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  3.  J  Fig.  XIV.,  p.  377. 


Variations  in  the  Rise  of  Volition         405 

us  that  the  rise  of  memory  and  imagination  is  the  direct  out- 
come of  the  need  which  confronts  the  organism  of  meeting 
its  stimulations  halfway:  the  organism  comes  to  reinstate 
within  consciousness,  on  occasion,  through  the  development 
of  its  central  cortical  processes,  certain  elements  which  we 
call  memories,  pictures,  thoughts,  without  waiting  for  the 
stimulations  outside.  If  it  be  true  that  memories  and  imagi- 
nations differ  from  perceptions  only  in  the  fact  that  they  are 
'away'  from  external  nature  and  not  dependent  upon  its 
present  objects,  then  why  may  not  all  the  motor  consequences 
which  were  at  first  associated  with  the  objects  follow  from  the 
images  simply? 

If  we  put  these  two  things  together,  namely,  organized 
habits  of  action  in  particular  ways,  and  the  motor  force  of 
memories  as  prompting,  by  their  dynamogenic  influence,  to 
the  repetition  of  the  reactions  with  which  they  themselves 
are  joined  —  then  we  have  the  possibility  of  volition  with- 
out overt  imitation  of  external  events,  and  possibly  earlier 
than  the  time  of  the  first  such  imitations,  i.e.  by  self- 
imitation. 

In  certain  instances  clearly  present  in  children,  the  facts 
are  simple,  and  show  three  cases :  either,  first,  the  child  simply 
remembers  something  and  aims  to  imitate  it ;  or,  second,  the 
synthesis  or  co-ordination  demanded  for  volition  is  really 
present,  as  our  scheme  in  Fig.  XIV.  demands,  but  one  of  the 
motor  tendencies  involved  is  a  special  native  tendency;  its 
stimulus  is  organic.  And  when  a  new  stimulation  comes  to 
excite  a  movement  in  conflict  with  the  one  prescribed  by  na- 
ture, then  there  is  all  the  complexity  of  volition.  A  subtle 
inner  controversy  arises  and  the  child  has  to  settle  it,  quite 
subconsciously  perhaps,  by  a  choice  which  is  voluntary.  Or 
third,  both  —  all  —  the  tendencies  may  be  native,  but  one 
of  them  modified  by  experience,  reflection,  etc.,  into  a  partial 


406  The  Origin  of  Volition 

conflict  with  others,  so  that  effort  arises  in  the  solution  of  the 
case  for  action. 

The  first  case  may  be  illustrated  by  any  volition  aimed  at 
a  memory,  and  bringing  out  the  movement  which  reinstates 
the  sensations  which  the  memory  stands  for.  My  child 
persistently  reaching  for  a  colour  and  then  moving  nearer  to 
get  it,  illustrates  this  case;  or  H.  dragging  a  table-cloth  in 
her  seventh  month  to  bring  my  bunch  of  keys  within  reach. 
She  remembers  the  movements  necessary  and  makes  them 
voluntarily  for  an  end  —  movements  she  had  before  found  out 
by  accident,  or  had  seen  some  one  else  make.  She  strives  to 
reproduce  the  sensations  of  movement  and  with  them  the 
touch  of  the  keys  by  just  the  circular  process  of  imitation, 
except  that  it  starts  in  the  memory  centre  instead  of  in  eye  or 
ear. 

The  second  case  has  interesting  illustrations  too:  a  con- 
flict brought  about  between  a  native  impelling  instinct  on  one 
hand,  and  a  suggested  course  on  the  other.  Many  direct 
modifications  of  instinct  arise  in  this  way,  the  inhibition  of 
sobbing  and  crying,  the  self-denial  of  not  reaching  for  at- 
tractive things,  all  responses,  to  parent  or  companion,  which 
conflict  with  spontaneous  tendency,  and  then  consciously 
master  it.  These  are  voluntary,  in  the  transition  sense,  just 
in  so  far  as  there  is  motor  duality  or  conflict,  resolved 
consciously  and  by  effort  into  a  motor  unity,  which  effects  a 
repetition  of  the  one  reaction  or  the  other. 

And  still  more  deep-going  is  the  third  class  of  these  so-called, 
in  our  developmental  phraseology,  ' phylogenetic  imitations,' 
which  show  the  clash  of  nature  against  itself.  We  have  seen 
the  lower  form  of  it  in  '  deliberative  suggestion ' ; *  suggestion 
locking  horns  with  suggestion,  and  then  —  the  outcome,  to 
tell  us  which  is  victorious.  A  corresponding  state  of  things 
1  Above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  3. 


Variation  in  the  Rise  of  Volition          407 

occurs  on  a  higher  scale,  at  the  cortical  level,  when  we  feel 
two  alternatives  so  strongly  and  consent  to  one  of  them,  by 
seeming  to  ourselves  not  to  choose  it  at  all.  It  simply  chooses 
itself,  and  we  stand  and  wonder.  So  the  child  often  acts 
voluntarily  when  it  is  practically  blind  to  pros  and  cons,  when 
the  whole  complex  condition  is  made  up  of  elements  so 
characteristic  and  strenuous  for  utterance,  that  allowance  or 
recognition  is  all  he  has  to  do.  The  child's  early  moral 
decisions  are  of  this  kind,  I  think.  The  ought,  the  right, 
simply  represents  a  growing  habit,  his  nature  coming  to  feel 
what  it  ought  to  be  by  what  it  is  getting  to  be,  in  the  midst 
of  crying  imperative  appetites  and  suggestions.  He  acts 
voluntarily  for  the  right,  let  us  say ;  but  who  can  say  that  his 
choice  is  in  every  case  in  any  real  sense  intended  beforehand? 
It  is  interesting  to  note,  further,  under  this  head,  an  in- 
stance of  what  is  to  be  spoken  of  again  as  the  'interaction 
of  habit  and  accommodation.'  We  find  volition  brought  out 
on  occasion  of  imitation,  a  higher  kind  of  imitation  called 
'persistent,'  in  which  the  child  does  not  rest  content  with 
the  degree  of  success  his  old  reactions  provide,  but  aims  'to 
try  again'  for  better  things.  Now  the  imitative  instinct  itself 
is  thus,  in  this  transition,  brought  to  the  bar,  and  violated  by 
its  own  passage  into  volition.  In  volition,  the  agency  of  the 
actor  comes  to  instruct  him.  He  learns  his  power  to  resist 
and  to  conquer,  as  well  as  his  weakness  and  subjection  to  a 
copy.  And  the  child  comes,  just  in  this  conflict  between 
imitation,  an  instinct,  and  suggestion,  an  innovation,  to 
break  through  and  make  himself  an  inventor,  and  a  free 
agent.  In  fact,  we  have  found  a  type  of  action  realized  in 
the  phrase  'contrary'  or  'wayward'  suggestion,  in  which  just 
this  revolt  becomes  a  way  of  action.  The  boy  won't  imitate. 
This  simply  means  that  he  won't  imitate  what  other  people 
ask  him  to,  but  prefers  to  imitate  what  he  asks  himself  to. 


408  The  Origin  of  Volition 

He  imitates  just  the  same,  of  course.  But  the  difference  is 
world-wide.  Such  a  'contrary'  boy  has  learned  the  lesson  of 
volition,  has  passed  from  suggestion  to  conduct,  has  mounted 
from  the  second  to  the  third  level,  and  is  available  for  genius- 
material.1 

I  have  said  enough  now  to  show  that  the  rise  of  volition 
is  but  another  illustration  of  the  one  law  of  motor  develop- 
ment. It  is  the  form  that  the  process  of  accommodation 
takes  on  when  the  central  processes  become  complex. 

1  The  great  question  of  invention  -versus  imitation  —  how  can  any  one  be 
original  if  even  volition  and  thought  be  imitative  functions  ?  —  is  treated  in 
Chaps.  III.-V.,  of  the  later  volume,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations, 


CHAPTER  XIV 

*THE  MECHANISM  OF  REVIVAL:  INTERNAL  SPEECH  AND 
SONG 

THE  facts  of  memory  and  imagination,  now  broadly  dis- 
cussed, are  capable  of  closer  description,  when  we  come  to 
the  analysis  of  consciousness  itself.  Each  function  which 
has  its  external  habit-aspect  in  the  action  of  the  person,  has 
also  its  internal  habit-aspect  in  the  movements  among  the 
elements  of  content  in  the  mind,  which  go  to  make  up  our 
'stream  of  thought.'  A  'cross-section'  of  the  stream  at  any 
moment  will  contain  the  elements  in  consciousness  which 
stand  for  the  activities  going  on,  or  tending  to  go  on,  in  the 
bodily  mechanism.  And  each  such  element  must  have  its 
reason  for  being  in  the  laws  of  assimilation,  association,  and 
thought,  already  briefly  put  in  evidence. 

I  shall  attempt  -to  show  this  in  more  detail  by  analyzing 
two  so-called  'expressive'  functions,  both  of  which  are  most 
interesting  in  themselves,  and  both  of  which  have  had  great 
light  thrown  upon  them  in  later  years:  speech  and  song. 
The  aim  shall  be,  not  to  give  detailed  descriptions  of  the 
execution  of  speech  and  music,  but  to  show  what  is  actually 
in  consciousness  at  the  time  of  any  such  execution,  and  how 
just  this  came  to  be  in  consciousness. 

§  i.  Internal  Speech:  How  do  we  think  oj  Words? 

An  important  advance  has  been  made  in  late  years  in  the 
purely  psychological  doctrine  of  memory  and  imagination. 
409 


4io  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

The  old  psychology  held  that  all  individuals  were  alike  as 
regards  the  brain  centres  for  the  memory  of  particular  things 
and  for  the  performance  of  particular  actions.  It  has  been 
shown,  however,  by  pathological  cases  and  by  analysis  as  well, 
that  we  are  not  alike.  Several  distinct  so-called  'types'  have 
been  discovered  —  persons  who  depend  mainly  on  one  sense 
for  their  memories,  and  on  the  memories  of  this  sense  mainly 
for  the  necessary  release  of  voluntary  energy  into  the  muscu- 
lar combinations  used  in  performing  particular  actions.  The 
analysis  of  the  speech  function  has  been  so  brilliant,  that  I 
may  explain  it  more  in  detail,  as  illustrating  the  general 
principle  of  'types,'  upon  which,  as  I  think,  the  true  theory 
of  the  rise  and  development  of  attention  must  be  based. 

The  doctrine  of  brain  function  in  speech  is  now  pretty 
clear  —  thanks  to  the  teaching,  principally,  of  pathological 
cases.  Normal  speech  is  a  function  which  probably  involves 
several  so-called  'brain  centres,'  all  in  dynamic  connection 
with  one  another.  Given  a  man  with  the  physical  appara- 
tus of  the  act  of  speaking  intact  —  vocal  organs,  nerve  con- 
nections, and  brain  seat  of  discharge  (Broca's  gyre)  —  and 
ask  why  such  a  man  speaks,  the  answer  may  take  several 
forms.  He  may  name  a  word  sign  which  he  has  seen,  or 
repeat  a  word  sound  which  he  has  heard,  or  tell  the  words 
he  has  written,  or  finally,  he  may  speak  a  word  simply  from 
the  habit  of  speaking  it  —  from  the  tendency  of  his  speech 
apparatus  to  operate  as  it  has  operated  before.  Now  we 
ordinarily  generalize  this  diversity  in  the  case  in  which  the 
man  'thinks'  the  word  merely,  without  speaking  it,  by  say- 
ing that  the  word  is  'in  his  mind,'  internal,  interieur;  but 
the  question  is :  What  is  in  his  mind  ?  —  the  printed  word 
(visual  image),  the  spoken  word  (auditory),  the  written  word 
(hand -motor),  the  articulate  word  (speech-motor)  —  is  it  all 
of  these?  Is  it  any  of  them? 


Internal  Speech  411 

If  we  agree  to  call  the  motor  centre  for  speech  (mp  of 
Fig.  XVII.,  b,  above)  the  'intrinsic'  seat  of  stimulation  to 
the  organs  of  speech,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  call  the 
other  centres  pointed  out  'extrinsic,'  the  question  now  cur- 
rent runs:  Are  these  extrinsic  centres  capable,  each  for 
itself,  of  arousing  the  speech  centre ;  or  does  one  of  them, 
the  centre  for  sensations  and  memories  of  actual  movement, 
the  '  kinaesthetic '  word  centre  (me,  of  the  same  figure),  always 
stand  between  the  motor  seat  and  the  other  sensory  centres? 

Or,  put  psychologically,  do  we,  when  we  remember  words 
and  speak  them,  always  recall  them  in  terms  of  the  sensa- 
tions of  movement  involved  in  speaking  or  writing  them ;  or 
is  it  possible  to  speak  simply  from  remembering  the  visual 
form  of  the  word,  or  its  sound?  Is  the  kinaesthetic  centre, 
with  the  memories  of  movement  to  which  its  processes  cor- 
respond, intrinsic  or  extrinsic? 

The  view  that  verbal  memories  are  always  motor,  or 
kinaesthetic,  is  associated  with  the  name  of  Strieker.1  Recent 
results  have  refuted  Strieker.  A  variety  of  facts  have  been 
adduced  to  show  that  the  function  of  speech  is  not  dependent 
in  all  cases  upon  the  possibility  of  reinstating  motor  ex- 
periences ;  although  in  some  cases  it  is,  for  patients  are  re- 
ported who  could  not  speak  unless  they  first  traced  the  words 
with  hand  or  pen.2  Many  of  these  facts  are  already  common 
property ;  but  a  few  of  the  recent  points  on  this  side  of  the 
discussion  are  these :  (i)  Cases  are  cited  of  verbal  hallucina- 
tion, in  which  the  patient  hears  two  or  more  voices,  one  of 
which  he  takes  to  be  his  own,  the  other  that  of  some  one 

1  Strieker,   Ueber  die  Bewegungsvorstellungen,   Ueber  die  Association  der 
Vorstellungen,  Ueber  die  Sprachvorstellungen,  Langage  et  Musique.     See  also 
G.  E.  Miiller,  Grundlegung  der  Psychophysik. 

2  See  Sommer's  report  on  the  so-called  Grashey  case  —  a  patient  named 
Voit  — in  Zeitsch.  fur  Psychologic,  II.,  Heft  3,  p.  158,  and  the  citations  of 
Pick,  same  journal,  III.,  Heft  i,  p.  50. 


412  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

else;  only  the  former  can  be  accounted  for  as  due  to  the 
incipient  stimulation  of  his  own  speech  centres,  the  other  is 
probably  auditory.1  This  interpretation  is  supported  by  the 
interesting  fact,  established  by  Pierre  Janet,  that  some 
patients  can  themselves  speak  during  their  verbal  hallucina- 
tions, while  others  cannot.  Again,  only  of  the  latter  class 
must  we  hold  that  the  motor  memories  are  necessary  to 
speech.2  Indeed,  there  is  a  characteristic  difference  between 
the  two  classes,  —  a  difference  first  pointed  out,  it  seems,  by 
Baillarger  —  i.e.  with  those  patients  who  are  able  to  speak 
without  interrupting  the  voice  which  they  hear,  we  have  a 
hallucination  of  objective  speech :  they  hear  what  they  think 
is  a  real  voice  outside  them.  While  the  other  class  have  a 
hallucination  of  internal  speech.  They  declare  that  there  is 
some  one  inside  them,  speaking  to  them.  Seglas  holds,  with 
evident  truth,  that  these  latter  hallucinations  are  'psycho- 
motor'  3  in  their  seat,  while  the  'objective'  kind  are  auditory. 
(2)  There  are  cases  of  aphasia  due  to  impairment  of  hearing, 
the  motor  centres  being  intact,  i.e.  cases  of  auditory  verbal 
amnesic  aphasia.4  (3)  We  recognize  and  understand  words 
which  we  are  unable  to  pronounce,  and  which  we  have  never 
written ;  this  recognition  must  be  by  aid  of  visual  or  auditory 
images.  The  part  played  by  the  visual  and  motor  memories 
respectively,  in  my  own  case,  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  when  I 

1  See  case  of  Charcot  quoted  by  Ballet,  Le  langage  interieur,  p.  64,  also 
cases  in  Seglas,  Les  troubles  du  langage  chez  les  alienes,  p.  126. 

*  Cf.  Revue  Philosophique,  November,  1892,  p.  520,  and  Seglas,  he.  tit., 
p.  117  and  p.  145.  A  case  is  reported  of  a  patient  who  could  stop  his  internal 
voice  by  holding  his  breath  (Annales  Psychol.,  January,  1893,  p.  103). 

5  Se"glas,  loc.  tit.,  p.  147 ;  Janet,  loc.  tit.,  who  advocates  the  expression 
'kinaesthetic  verbal'  instead  of  'psycho-motor,'  as  applying  to  this  hallu- 
cination of  internal  speech. 

4  See  cases  collected  by  Ballet,  loc.  tit.,  pp.  91-92 ;  also  Bastian's  case, 
Brain  as  Organ  of  Mind,  p.  642;  cf.  also  Paulhan,  Revue  Philosophique, 
XXI.,  pp.  37  ff. 


Internal  Speech  413 

wish  to  speak  in  any  language  but  English,  the  German  words 
come  first  into  my  mind ;  but  when  I  sit  down  to  write  in  a 
foreign  language,  French  words  invariably  present  them- 
selves. This  means  that  my  German  is  speech-motor  and 
auditory,  having  been  learned  conversationally  in  Germany, 
while  the  French,  which  was  acquired  in  school  by  reading 
and  exercise-writing,  is  visual  and  hand-motor.1  It  is  in- 
teresting also  to  note  the  joyous  recognition  which  young 
children  show,  when  they  speak  a  new  vowel  or  consonant 
sound  correctly.  The  memory  of  the  correct  sound  cannot, 
in  this  case  evidently,  be  from  the  motor  centres.2  (4)  There 
is  evidence  of  direct  functional  connection  between  the  visual 
and  auditory  seats  respectively,  and  the  centre  of  motor  dis- 
charge. Here  I  may  best  give  the  words  of  Janet,  who 
writes  in  view  of  the  pathological  evidence:  "This  hypoth- 
esis is  confirmed  by  investigations  on  anaesthetic  hysterics. 
In  my  opinion,  it  is  impossible  to  explain  the  fact  that  these 
persons  preserve  their  power  of  movement  intact,  in  spite  of 
the  absolute  loss  of  kinaesthetic  sensations  and  images,  un- 
less we  admit  that  movement  may  be  directly  stimulated  by 
visual  and  auditory  pictures.  There  are  individuals  with 
whom  the  auditory  image  of  a  word  suffices  for  its  pronun- 
ciation." 3  (5)  The  law  of  'dynamogenesis,'  in  accordance 

1  A  similar  case,  apart  from  details,  is  reported  by  Ballet,  loc.  tit.,  p.  62. 

2  At  the  risk  of  too  much  personality  (of  which,  however,  the  literature  of 
this  topic  is  necessarily  full),  I  may  quote  the  following  about  my  two-year- 
old  child  H.,  written  by  her  aunt,  Miss  E.  L.  Baldwin:  "She  rejoices  greatly 
when  she  succeeds  in  sounding  a  new  letter.     The  other  day  she  achieved  /, 
and  went  about  telling  everybody,  '  Baby  can  say  sleep  and  slipper.'     This 
morning  I  am  informed  that  she  can  say  'save'  and  'give'  (letter  v).     She 
notices  at  once  herself,  when  she  can  pronounce  the  word  as  the  rest  of  us 
do  —  no  one  tells  her." 

3  Pierre  Janet,  Automatisme  Psychologique,  p.  60.     The  common  cases  of 
patients  who  can  copy,  when  they  cannot  initiate  writing  and  speech,  are  in 
evidence. 


414  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

with  which  every  sensory  stimulation  tends  to  bring  about  a 
motor  discharge,  indicates  such  a  direct  connection  in  cases 
of  closely  associated  function.  Fdre*  demonstrates  that 
speaking  makes  the  hand-grasp  stronger,  that  seeing  colours 
and  hearing  sounds  influence  the  motor  centres;  so  it  is 
altogether  probable  that  stimulations  of  sight  and  hearing 
react  directly  to  stimulate  the  motor  speech  centres.1  (6)  Cases 
may  be  cited  of  direct  antagonism  between  memories  of  words 
and  the  sensations  produced  by  the  speech  movements  which 
they  stimulate.  The  pathological  state  called  paraphasia 2 
is  duplicated  sometimes  temporarily  in  cases  of  severe  head- 
ache; one  intends  to  mention  one  object  (chair)  and  really 
speaks  another  (spoon),  without  detecting  the  mistake.  I 
have  myself  had  this  experience ;  being  quite  unable  to  name 
correctly  an  object  seen,  until  some  one  else  has  spoken  the 
word  with  emphasis  —  yet  all  the  while  allowing  my  own 
incorrect  word  to  pass,  and  feeling  astonishment  that  others 
have  not  understood  my  meaning.  Similar  are  those  cases 
in  which  patients  take  their  own  words  for  those  of  some  one 
else,  declaring,  when  questioned,  that  they  themselves  did 
not  speak  them.3  Reflection  leads  us  to  the  view  that  in 
these  cases  there  is  a  direct  flow  from  the  auditory  or  visual 
centre  to  the  motor  speech  centre,  the  kinaesthetic  speech 
centre  being,  perhaps,  temporarily  inhibited.  The  same 
kind  of  antagonism  is  also  seen,  from  the  other  side,  when 
there  is  'exaltation'  of  the  kinaesthetic  centre,  or  what  is 

1  Fe"re"  cites  his  results  in  support  of  Strieker's  contention ;  see  his  Sensa- 
tion et  Mouvement.  He  fails,  however,  to  distinguish  between  the  direct 
motor  effect  of  a  sensation,  and  the  indirect  motor  effect  —  i.e.  through 
the  kinaesthetic  centre,  or  via  the  motor  correlations  which  the  attention  re- 
quires —  this  indirect  effect  being  required  by  Strieker's  view. 

1  Cf.  Bastian's  cases  of  ' incoordinate  amnesia,'  Brain  as  Organ  of  Mind. 
pp.  634-638. 

1  See  Solas'  very  interesting  cases,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  150  f. 


Internal  Speech  415 

called  uncontrollable  'verbal  impulse.'  The  patient  speaks 
certain  words  or  phrases  in  spite  of  himself  —  against  his 
utmost  effort  to  speak  something  else.1 

This  conception  of  the  case— not  to  dwell  upon  other 
points  of  evidence 2  —  seems  to  harmonize  well  with  the 
doctrine  of  nervous  function  now  becoming  more  and  more 
current.  According  to  this  doctrine,  the  brain  is  a  series  of 
centres  of  only  relatively  stable  tension;  the  various 
associative  connections  among  these  centres  are  paths  of 
less  and  more,  rather  than  of  least  and  most,  resistance ;  the 
range  of  alternative  adjustments  is  excessively  wide;  and, 
consequently,  any  individual  has  his  'personal  equation' 
in  all  functions  as  complex  as  that  of  speech.  One  man  is 
a  'motor,'  another  a  'visual,'  a  third  an  'auditive,'  according 
as  one  or  another  of  the  extrinsic  sources  of  stimulation 
suffices  to  release  the  necessary  energy  into  his  motor  speech 
centre.  No  one  doubts  Strieker,  therefore,  when  he  says 

1  See  Se"glas  on  'hysterical  mutism,'  loc.  cit.,  pp.  97  f.     In  dreams  this  is 
probably  the  case :    the  kinffisthetic  centres  are  no  longer  inhibited,  and  we 
talk  meaningless  sounds,  which  in  our  dream  consciousness  are  interpreted,  as 
rational  discourse.     In  view  of  all  such  cases  of  antagonism,  I  suggested  in  an 
earlier  statement  of  the  main  considerations  on  this  point  (Philos.  Review,  II., 
1893,  p.  389),  that  a  distinction  was  legitimate  between  psychic  and  cortical 
dumbness,  corresponding  to  the  current  distinction  on  the  sensory  side.    Just 
as  there  is  a  distinction  between  being  unable  to  hear  words  (cortical  deaf- 
ness), and  being  unable  to  understand  the  meanings  of  words  we  hear  (psychic 
deafness),  so  there  is  a  distinction,  shown  pathologically,  between  being 
unable  to  speak  words,  and  being  unable  to  speak  the  words  we  mean.    Put 
in  different  terminology,  the  former  case  would  be  due  to  a  lesion  of  the  motor 
elements  at  the  'second  level,'  and  the  latter  case  to  a  lesion  of  the  motor 
connections  between  the  second  and  the  cortical  or  'third  level.'     Compare 
the  allusions  made  to  these  differences  above,  Chap.  XIII.,  §  3,  p.  387. 

2  For  instance,  cf.  Stumpf,  Tonpsychologie,  I.,  pp.  160  ff.     Further  evi- 
dence accrues,  also,  from  the  consideration  of  tune  memories,  which  seem  to 
be  independent,  in  many  adults,  and  generally  in  children,  of  the  singing  or 
playing  of  the  tunes.     Cf.  above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  5,  and  the  next  section  of  this 
chapter. 


4i 6  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

that  he  remembers  words  only  by  means  of  sensations  of 
incipient  movement;  but  for  the  same  reason  we  cannot 
dispute  the  claim  of  Stumpf,  and  Wernicke,  and  Kussmaul, 
and  Lichtheim,  that  auditory  and  visual  images  may,  in 
other  cases,  play  an  equally  leading  rdle. 

§  2.  Internal  Song:    How  do  we  think  of  Tunes? 

The  question  of  'internal  song'  is  a  newer  one.  What 
do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  a  'tune  is  running  in  our 
head'?  What  sort  of  images  are  really  in  consciousness 
then? 

The  factors  involved  are  evidently  less  complex  than  those 
already  shown  to  be  involved  in  speech  memory,  in  the  dis- 
cussion in  the  preceding  paragraph,  at  the  same  time  that 
the  entire  phenomenon  is  more  obscure.  Evidence  goes  to 
show  that  the  internal  tune  is  almost  entirely  auditory :  that 
is,  that  the  auditory  centre  is  intrinsic  to  musical  reproduc- 
tion. 

An  adequate  discussion  of  the  nature  of  tune  reproduction 
should  provide  a  theory  of  tune  perception  which  takes  ac- 
count of  three  factors  —  pitch,  time  or  rhythm,  timbre  — 
and  possibly  of  a  fourth  character,  ordinarily  designated  by 
the  phrase  '  musical  expression, '  or,  more  properly,  emotional 
tone.1 

1  There  is  not  a  great  deal  of  literature  on  this  topic :  see  the  following 
titles:  Egger,  La  parole  interieure;  Strieker,  Langage  et  musique;  Stumpf, 
Tonpsychologie,  I.,  pp.  135  ff.;  Wallaschek,  Vierteljahrschrift  fur  Musik- 
•wissenschajt,  1891,  Heft  i,  and  '  Die  Bedeutung  der  Aphasia  fur  die  Musik- 
vorstellung,'  Zeitsch.  fur  Psychol.,  VI.,  Heft  i,  and  his  review  of  my  theory  in 
the  same  journal,  VII.,  Heft  i ;  Wallaschek  has  a  popular  article  also  in  the 
Contemporary  Review,  September,  1894;  Lotze,  Medicinische  Psychologic, 
p.  480;  G.  E.  Mviller,  Grundlegung  der  Psychophysik,  p.  288;  v.  Franckl- 
Hochwart,  '  Ueber  den  Verlust  der  musikalischen  Ausdruckvermogens '  in 
Deutsche  Zeitschrift  fur  Nervenheilkunde,  1891, 1.,  pp.  283-291 ;  Oppenheim, 


Internal  Song  417 

There  are  certain  interesting  points  of  relationship  between 
the  process  of  internal  speech  and  that  of  'internal'  or 
remembered  music.  For  example,  many  persons  find  in- 
ternal tunes  generally  fuller,  more  real,  and  sometimes  only 
tunes  at  all  when  vocal  movements  are  involved;  either, 
that  is,  when  they  remember  the  appropriate  words,  when  they 
have  sung  the  words  to  the  tune,  or  when  they  have  hummed 
the  refrain  aloud.  Here  there  is  clearly  a  motor  type  of  music 
performers.  But  this  motor  requirement  is  extremely  vari- 
able. In  some  cases  the  tune  must  be  associated  with  a  par- 
ticular instrument,  and  this  is  done  only  by  the  reproduction 
of  the  proper  sensations  in  the  finger  tips,  lips,  etc.,  used  in 
playing  that  instrument.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  facts 
which  show  that  the  motor  type  is  only  a  type,  and  that  even 
in  these  cases  auditory  tune  memories  are  necessary.  Musical 
recognition  in  childhood  often  precedes  verbal  recognition. 
Musical  expression  usually  precedes  verbal  expression,  both 
when  there  is  a  clearly  inherited  musical  tendency,1  and  in 
ordinary  imitative  reactions.2  In  case  of  'absolute  hear- 
ing,' discussed  below,  we  have  apparently  recognition  of 
pitch  without  any  motor  speech  or  song  images.  Further, 
there  is  the  critical  fact  that  motor  aphasia,  and  even  verbal 
deafness,  may  exist  with  no  impairment  of  the  musical  faculty 
—  no  amusia,  as  defects  of  musical  faculty  are  called  by 
Brazier.  This  is  true  both  for  musical  recognition  (case  of 
Wemicke),  and  for  musical  expression.3  Cases  show,  how- 

Charite  Annalen,  XIIL,  1888,  345-383;  besides  the  voluminous  literature 
of  aphasia.  An  interesting  late  article,  full  of  bibliographical  references,  is 
by  Brazier,  Revue  Philosophique,  October,  1892,  p.  337.  For  later  citations, 
see  the  appropriate  topics  in  the  writer's  Diet,  of  PhUos.  and  Psychology. 

1  Interesting  cases  are  cited  by  Ballet,  loc.  tit.,  p.  24. 

»  My  child  E.  imitated  a  run  of  three  notes,  vocally,  before  she  showed  any 
verbal  imitations. 

'  Cf.  v.  Franckl-Hochwart,  loc.  tit.,  L,  p.  283. 
2E 


418  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

ever,  that  the  latter,  musical  expression,  is  never  lost,  without 
involving  speech;  although  musical  recognition  seems 
sometimes,  as  in  Carpenter's  case  and  in  Brazier's  cases  of 
musical  amnesia,  to  be  lost  without  impairing  speech.1  The 
conclusion  that  musical  reproduction  is  auditory  is  supported 
also  by  such  facts  as  the  following :  that  we  often  recognize  an 
air  after  hearing  it  once,  even  when  we  have  never  tried  to 
sing  it,  and  could  not  if  we  tried ;  that  in  singing  or  humming 
a  tune,  we  know  that  we  are  wrong  even  when  we  are  unable 
to  correct  it;  tune  hallucinations  without  words  or  vocal 
quality  are  reported,  and  illusions  of  tunes  may  be  started  by 
accidental  sounds;2  many  persons  are  able  to  remember  and 
recall  musical  chords  and  combinations  which  it  is  impossible 
for  the  human  voice  to  reproduce,  i.e.  we  can  mentally  depict 
harmony ;  further,  there  are  cases  of  persons  who  can  recog- 
nize the  pitch  of  tones  from  instruments,  but  not  that  of  the 
tones  of  their  own  voice.3  It  seems  clear,  indeed,  on  the  sur- 
face, that  of  the  elements  distinguished  above  as  essential 
to  musical  reproduction  —  pitch,  rhythm,  timbre,  and  emo- 
tional tone  —  the  most  essential,  pitch,  finds  no  adequate 
basis  in  motor  speech  or  song  memories.  The  range  of 
intonation  in  speaking  and  singing  is  too  narrow  to  supply 
the  material  for  musical  reproduction,  although  there  are,  no 
doubt,  individuals  whose  musical  capacity  —  especially  of 
expression  —  is  confined  to  these  limits. 
It  is  probable,  accordingly,  that  there  is  a  brain-centre  for 

1  Wallaschek,  Zt.  j.  Psych.,  VII.,  March,  1893,  p.  671,  in  criticising  this 
statement  of  mine,  cites  cases  of  musical  inability  through  stage-fright,  while 
speech  remains,  as  possible  exceptions.     I  think,  however,  that  stage-fright  is 
such  an  emotional  and  interested  thing  that  the  inability  is  not  really  musical 
at  all,  but  is  rather  due  to  general  nervous  inhibition. 

2  Ordinary  internal  tunes  are  usually  stimulated  in  this  way,  as  I  have  said 
above,  Chap.  VI.,  §  5. 

3  Cases  of  v.  Kries  cited  below. 


Pitch  Recognition  419 

tune  memories  —  a  centre  whose  impairment  produces  so- 
called  notal  amusia  —  that  this  centre  is  a  part,  in  function, 
at  least,  if  not  anatomically,  of  the  auditory  centre,  and  that 
cases  will  occur  of  partial  amusia  in  different  persons,  due 
to  the  degree  in  which  this  function  involves  others.1  This 
general  conclusion  is  confirmed,  I  think,  by  what  follows  on 
pitch  memory,  the  only  one  of  the  four  elements  of  musical 
reproduction  which  is  in  order  here. 

§  3.    Pitch  Recognition:  How  do  we  know  Notes? 

The  recognition  of  the  pitch  of  notes  gives  two  cases  ap- 
parently distinct  from  each  other,  i.e.  'relative'  and  'absolute' 
pitch  recognition.  In  relative  recognition  the  musical  inter- 
val seems  to  supply  the  real  locus  of  the  recognition.  Given 
the  initial  note  and  the  proper  rhythm  —  and  the  rest  of  the 
tune  comes  up  by  reason  of  the  associated  tone  intervals, 
note  by  note.  It  is  the  case  of  objective  recognition  by 
assimilation  of  content,  as  already  described.2  Comparatively 
few  persons  lack  the  ability  to  carry  through  a  familiar  tune 
mentally.  Absolute  recognition,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  differ- 
ent accomplishment ;  even  among  competent  musicians  it  is 
often3  conspicuously  absent.  It  is  the  power  of  reproducing  a 
note  of  any  desired  pitch  absolutely  from  memory. 

1  For  example,  musical  deafness  without  verbal  deafness;  case  of  Grant 
Allen  in  Mind,  III.,  p.  157,  and  that  of  Brazier,  loc.  tit.,  p.  359.  Bastian, 
loc.  tit.,  p.  664,  quotes  a  case  from  Lasegue  of  an  aphasic  musician,  who 
could  write  nothing  but  passages  of  music  which  he  had  just  heard.  A  recent 
case  of  Pick's  (Archiv  jiir  Psych.,  1892,  p.  910)  seems  at  first  sight  to  give 
trouble,  i.e.  a  case  of  loss  of  musical  recognition  with  no  impairment  of  musical 
expression.  Yet  Pick's  location  of  the  lesion  as  subcortical  sufficiently  accords 
with  the  view  in  the  text.  The  seat  of  auditory  attention  was  not  injured. 
Cf.  note  on  Pick's  position,  and  the  theory  of  'muscular  control,'  below,  Chap- 
XV.,  §  4. 

>  Chap.  X.,  §  3. 

3  In  the  case  of  some  of  those  who  carry  tuning-forks  in  their  pockets. 


420  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

The  auditory  character  of  all  relative  pitch  recognition  is 
shown  by  the  following  facts  —  in  addition  to  the  general 
considerations  already  adduced :  (i)  Brazier1  cites  cases  of 
aphasic  patients  who  could  speak  words  only  by  singing  them : 
that  is,  they  must  first  recognize  an  air,  and  then  arouse  the 
motor  speech  function  from  that  cue.  The  motor  centre  not 
being  available  in  these  cases,  it  is  difficult  to  see  on  what 
but  auditory  grounds  the  tune  recognition  could  proceed.  It 
often  occurs,  in  my  own  case,  that  I  cannot  recall  the  words 
of  a  song  until  I  get  the  tune  started.  Another  case  of  this 
kind  is  cited  immediately  below.  (2)  I  find  it  possible,  with 
Paulhan,2  to  think  different  notes  very  clearly  while  the  vocal 
organs  are  held  rigid.  I  am  able  to  think  one  note  while  I 
am  uttering  aloud  a  long-drawn-out  vocal  sound,  say  a,  in 
a  different  pitch.  And  lest  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  the  over- 
tones which  are  heard  internally  in  this  case,  I  may  add,  that 
I  am  able  with  the  greatest  ease  to  hold  aloud  an  a  sound  at 
c',  say,  and  at  the  same  time  to  cause  a  whole  tune  —  say 
Yankee-doodle  —  to  run  its  course  'in  my  ear.'  Strieker's 
inability  to  think  one  consonant  while  speaking  another  is 
due,  probably,  to  the  fact  that,  in  uttering  labials,  etc.,  pro- 
nounced and  explosive  muscular  combinations  are  necessary, 
and  that  they  have  no  clear  auditory  character,  being  usually 
merged  in  accompanying  vowel  sounds.  (3)  My  internal 
tunes  have  very  decided  pitch  —  determined  upon  an  in- 
strument in  a  number  of  cases.  Yet,  as  I  have  said  above, 
it  is  not  always  the  normal  pitch  of  the  tune  as  written  and 
learned,  nor  is  it  constant  for  recurrences  of  the  same  tune. 

In  explaining  pitch  recognition  the  question  of  relative 
pitch  comes  first.  The  very  fact  that  it  is  relative,  means  that 
it  may  be  brought  under  the  law  of  objective  conscious  recog- 

1  Loc.  tit.,  p.  366.  •         l  Loc.  cit. 


Pitch  Recognition  421 

nition  in  general.  If  recognition  be  due  to  assimilation, 
relationship,  'fringe,'  in  the  representation  recognized,  and 
vary  with  the  degree  of  this  associative  of  apperceptive  ele- 
ment, then  recognition  of  each  note  would  occur,  like  the 
recognition  of  any  other  presented  content,  according  as  it 
have  or  have  not  a  train  or  fringe  of  associated  elements.  A 
tune  is  then  recognized,  because  it  is  such  a  train.  The 
degree  of  precision  in  its  recognition  depends  upon  the  fine- 
ness of  discrimination  at  the  original  hearing  of  it.  So  also 
the  fact  that  notes  are  better  recognized  after  the  musical 
notation  has  been  learned,  simply  means  that  additional  ele- 
ments are  brought  into  the  complex  by  the  notation  —  ele- 
ments which  support  the  claim  of  the  whole.  With  persons 
of  the  motor  type,  further,  the  motor  speech  and  song  images 
are  prominent  in  this  complex,  and  so  essential,  in  some  cases, 
that  recognition  does  not  occur  without  them.  It  seems  likely, 
therefore,  that  if  we  grant  differences  of  pitch  in  tone  sen- 
sations, the  recognition  of  the  associated  trains  which  we 
call  '  tunes '  is  but  an  instance  of  a  broader  mental  phenome- 
non. 

Absolute  recognition,  on  the  other  hand,  or  'absolute  hear- 
ing,' as  it  is  called,  presents  anomalies  which  make  it  difficult 
to  explain  it  as  an  ordinary  case  of  recognition  by  presented 
association.  Either  we  must  find  elements  of  complexity  in 
such  tones  or  confess  that  here  is  an  exception  to  the  accepted 
theory.  I  have  already  given  the  general  principles  by  which 
this  case  is  to  be  explained:  but  it  may  be  well  to  apply 
them  now  to  a  concrete  instance.1  The  question  which  may 
be  asked  is  this:  Can  any  one  identify  a  note  of  any 
pitch  simply  and  only  from  the  tone-quality  of  the  note 
itself? 

One  of  the  latest  contributions  to  this   question   is  from 

1  See  above,  Chap.  X.,  §  3. 


422  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

v.  Kries,1  who  is  himself  a  musician.  He  possesses  the  so- 
called  absolute  hearing.  He  also  publishes  details  supplied 
from  other  similar  cases.  He  argues  that  the  ability  to  iden- 
tify a  single  isolated  note  cannot  be  due  to  musical  practice, 
i.e.  cannot  be  a  refinement  of  interval  recognition,2  because 
(i)  he  has  had  this  power  from  early  boyhood,  as  also  have 
others  whom  he  cites;  (2)  some  of  the  most  celebrated  mu- 
sicians have  not  been  able  to  acquire  it  at  all,  although  their 
sense  of  interval  became  wonderfully  acute ;  and  (3)  the  power 
in  himself  and  others  varies  with  the  instrument  which  sounds 
the  note,  and  is  not  best  with  the  instruments  most  used.  He 
recognizes  notes  from  the  piano  best,  also  from  string  and 
wind  instruments,  especially  the  violin,  but  not  those  from 
tuning-forks,  or  steam  and  other  whistles,  or  notes  sung  or 
whistled  with  the  lips  —  a  state  of  things  shown  with  some 
variations  also  in  several  of  his  correspondents.  Now  the 
violin  is  with  v.  Kries  a  late  accomplishment,  while  he  has, 
of  course,  been  hearing  singing  all  his  life,  accompanying 
singers  on  the  piano  from  his  twelfth  year,  and  whistling 
habitually.  Indeed,  these  last  facts  —  showing  the  influ- 
ence of  timbre  on  pitch  recognition  —  lead  him  to  deny  that 
there  are  any  revived  images  of  any  kind  belonging  intrin- 
sically to  musical  recognition.  He  finds  it  to  be  a  case  of  the 
'  association  by  naming '  as  established  by  Lehmann ;  that  is, 
v.  Kries  was  not  able  to  recognize  notes  until  after,  in  boy- 
hood, he  had  learned  their  names  and  written  signs.  The 
case  is  analogous,  therefore,  he  holds,  to  the  recognitions  which 
Lehmann  found  to  follow  from  the  simple  lettering  and 
naming  of  shades  of  wool  not  before  separately  recognized. 
This  conclusion  of  v.  Kries  is  lame,  I  think.  It  does  not 

1 '  Das  absolute  Gehor,'  in  Zeitschrijt  jiir  Psychologic  und  Physiologic  der 
SInnesorgane,  III.,  192,  p.  257. 
1  So  Stumpf ,  he,  tit.,  I.,  p.  380. 


Pitch  Recognition  423 

account  for  the  differences  due  to  timbre  mentioned  above; 
for  the  notation  is  the  same  practically  for  all  the  instruments 
and  for  the  voice,  v.  Kries  admits  this,  and  says  it  remains 
for  the  future  to  provide  a  theory  of  this  influence  due  to 
timbre  —  leaning,  however,  as  he  does,  to  the  overtone 
theory.  Further,  he  agrees  with  other  observers  in  finding 
that  chords  are  better  recognized  than  single  notes;  this 
would  indicate  that  recognition  is  due  in  some  way  to  the 
complexity  and  variety  of  the  tone  content,  rather  than  to  the 
accident  of  naming.  It  is  possible,  perhaps,  to  give  due 
weight  to  the  influence  of  the  name  association  in  a  theory 
which  does  more  justice  to  the  essential  facts.  This  and 
other  cases  of  the  recognition  of  apparently  isolated  sense 
qualities  can  be  brought,  I  think,  under  the  law  of  'sensori- 
motor  association'  made  out  above,1  according  to  which  the 
recognition  is  due  simply  to  the  modification  of  the  a  element 
in  the  formula  of  attention,  i.e.  to  the  relative  ease  of  ad- 
justment of  the  attention  to  one  particular  tone-pitch  as  such. 
Several  considerations  may  be  urged  in  favour  of  this 
view:  (i)  It  brings  absolute  and  relative  tone  recognition 
under  a  single  principle;  the  former  arises  on  the  motor 
side,  the  latter  on  the  sensory,  or  content  side,  of  the  one 
process;  (2)  it  accounts  for  the  greater  relative  ease  of  recog- 
nition of  chords  and  compound  tones;  apart  from  their  com- 
plexity of  content,  they  carry  greater  and  more  varied  dyna- 
mogenic  influence;  (3)  it  makes  it  possible  to  consider  tone 
recognition  in  some  cases  hereditary,  as  the  facts  (i.e.  cases  of 
v.  Kries  and  others)  seem  to  require ;  persons  have  from  birth 
a  tendency  to  give  the  attention  with  greater  facility  to  one 
class  of  stimulations  than  to  another  —  so  the  doctrine  of 

1  Chap.  X.,  §  3.  Instead  of  Hoffding's  sentence  (Phil.  Stud.,  VIII.,  p.  90), 
'die  organische  Functionen  gehen  leichter'  in  absolute  recognition,  I  should 
say,  the  psycho-physical  function  of  attention  'goes  easier.' 


424  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

types  teaches.  Why  may  not  this  difference  extend  also  to 
different  notes?  The  analysis  given  above  of  the  speech 
function  leads  us  to  see  what  refinements  are  possible  in  the 
recognition  of  words.  Even  the  recognition  of  particular 
classes  of  words,  as  nouns,  may  be  lost  while  other  words  are 
correctly  used.  Brazier  cites  a  case  in  which  the  visual 
time  notation  of  written  music  was  retained  while  the  pitch 
notation  in  the  same  music  was  lost.  A  corresponding 
native  refinement  on  the  motor  side,  i.e.  in  the  attention,  is 
all  that  this  theory  requires,  that  is,  if  we  are  right  in  consider- 
ing the  attention  to  involve  refined  motor  adjustments.  Re- 
finements on  the  sensory  side,  as  seen  in  association,  are 
dependent,  indeed,  upon  refinements  on  the  motor  side. 
The  variations  in  motor  reactions  are  the  winnowing,  selecting 
agents  in  all  mental  progress;  (4)  it  enables  us  to  explain 
the  apparent  influence  of  timbre,  a  fact  not  explained  by  any 
other  theory.  The  fact  that  isolated  tones  from  some  in- 
struments are  recognized,  while  from  others  they  are  not,  I 
hold  to  arise  from  differences  in  the  type  of  attention  exerted 
in  the  several  cases  respectively.  A  'visual'  musician  is 
most  likely  to  recognize  tones  from  instruments  whose  manip- 
ulation or  notation  involves  much  visual  attention ;  an  '  audi- 
tive,' notes  from  those  which  exercise  hearing  in  most  varied 
and  exclusive  ways;  and  a  'motor,'  notes  from  those  in  con- 
nection with  which  muscular  attention  is  at  its  best.  It  is 
remarkable  that  in  all  of  v.  Kries's  recognitions,  the  method  of 
learning  is  probably  by  visual  note-reading,  —  piano,  violin, 
etc.,  —  while  his  non-recognitions  —  his  own  voice,  voice 
of  others,  steam  whistles,  lip-whistling,  etc.  —  are  apparently 
in  cases  in  which  the  essential  indications  do  not  include  such 
systematic  visual  attention.  Now  on  the  supposition  that 
v.  Kries  is  a  'visual,'  i.e.  that  the  pitch  elements  of  the  atten- 
tion in  his  case  are  most  readily  stimulated  from  the  centre 


Pitch  Recognition  425 

for  sight,  we  have  a  clear  application  of  our  law.1  Further, 
v.  Kries  was  unable  to  recognize  tones  before  he  learned  musi- 
cal notation,  which,  it  is  natural  to  suppose,  was  at  first  visual. 
The  case  of  musical  alexia  already  quoted  from  Brazier  shows 
the  importance  of  a  single  class  of  notation  memories,  although 
that  case  involved  the  loss,  not  of  tone  recognition,  but  of 
musical  execution;2  (5)  one  of  v.  Kries's  cases  of  'absolute 
hearing'  seems  to  be,  from  what  he  reports  of  it,  motor  in 
type :  a  young  woman  who  recognized  tones  when  sung  only 
by  means  of  'internal  repetition,'  to  herself,  of  the  notes  sung 
(das  Bedurjniss  bestand,  sie  innerlich  nachzusingen).3  This 
innerliches  Nachsingen,  in  a  case  where  the  real  note  is 
already  heard,  is  probably  motor,  a  supposition  supported  by 
the  fact  that  the  woman  was  a  'skilful  singer  herself.'  Her 
quicker  recognition  of  piano  tones  might  be  because  of  the 
motor  practice  in  hand  execution ;  (6)  this  point  of  view  affords 
us  an  additional  reason  for  the  fact,  which  all  admit,  that 
the  best  recognitions  are  for  notes  of  moderate  pitch,  —  not 
very  high  or  very  low ;  for,  being  of  most  frequent  occurrence, 
these  notes  exercise  the  attention  most,  and  so  get  most  easily 
and  readily  accommodated  to.  And  it  is  also  easy  to  see  that, 
for  this  reason,  their  discrimination  becomes  finer  and  better; 
(7)  in  the  experiments  already  referred  to,  Fdre*  found  differ- 
ent dynamogenic  effects  to  follow  the  hearing  of  the  different 
notes  of  the  musical  scale,  and  the  greatest  effect  to  follow  the 
notes  in  the  middle  of  the  gamut ;  if  true,  this  is  nothing  short 
of  a  demonstration  of  variations  in  the  a  element  in  attention, 
for  different  pitches. 

Finally,  if  'motor  associates'  be  at  the  bottom  of  pure- 

1  Of  course,  such  an  application  is  only  an  illustration;  the  details  of  the 
individual's  life  and  education  —  the  questions  'why?'  and  'to  what  extent? 
he  is  visual,  motor,  etc.  —  make  any  single  case  extremely  complex. 
2  Loc.  tit.,  p.  363.  '  Loc.  cit.,  p.  273. 


426  The  Mechanism  of  Revival 

tone  recognition,  we  would  expect  something  of  the  same  kind 
in  the  case  of  colour  and  odour  qualities.  This  is  the 
sphere  of  Lehmann's  results  in  Benennungsassociation  to 
which  v.  Kries  appeals.  Now  Fere"  claims  to  have  demon- 
strated this  point  also,  i.e.  that  colour  discrimination  and 
recognition  are  improved  by  muscular  exercise.  He  found  it 
possible  to  bring  back  purple  recognition  to  purple-blind 
hysterics,  simply  by  muscular  movement.  It  is  a  ready 
deduction,  also,  from  the  opposite  fact  that  the  different 
colours,  beginning  with  red,  have  diminishing  dynamogenic 
effect  as  measured  on  the  squeeze-dynamometer. 

The  details  now  cited,  in  the  case  of  speech  and  tune 
revival,  may  be  taken  as  detailed  examples  of  the  application 
of  the  general  theory  of  assimilation  to  detailed  instances. 
The  position  of  the  theory  as  regards  recognition  of  tones 
may  be  stated  in  the  words  of  James,  quoted  from  his  review 
of  my  earlier  article :  "It  offers  a  basis  of  mediation  between 
the  two  theories  of  Recognition  over  which  Hoffding  and 
Lehmann  have  recently  waged  war.  One  theory,  stated  in 
its  radical  form,  says  that  a  thing  looks  familiar  to  us  when  it 
recalls  to  us  its  past  self.  The  other  theory  says  it  looks  or 
sounds  familiar  when  it  recalls  its  past  surroundings.  The 
difficulty  with  the  latter  view  is,  that  the  supposed  surround- 
ings fail  to  become  explicitly  conscious  when  the  recognition 
is  confined  to  the  bare  'sense  of  familiarity.'  How  do  we 
know,  then,  that  they  are  at  all  tending  to  revive?  But 
Professor  Baldwin,  in  making  them  sink  to  the  level  of  mere 
motor  associates  of  former  acts  of  attention,  gives  a  good 
reason  why  our  consciousness  of  them  should  be  so  indistinct, 
and  why  at  the  same  time  we  should  so  unmistakably  greet 
the  sensory  experience  which  they  accompany  as  one  already 
ours."  * 

1  The  Psychological  Review,  I.,  1894,  p.  210. 


Pitch  Recognition  427 

An  informal  criticism  by  Professor  Hoffding  is  answered 
in  another  place.1  Wallaschek2  objects  to  my  view,  that 
as  all  persons  have  the  requisite  factors,  all  should  have  ab- 
solute tone  recognition.  But  the  reason  they  do  not  is, 
I  think,  not  a  fault  of  their  reproduction,  but  of  their  per- 
ception. Some  cannot  recognize  tones  again,  because  they 
do  not  clearly  distinguish  them  in  the  first  instance.  All 
possible  variations,  from  the  best  to  the  poorest  discrimination 
of  tones,  would  give  corresponding  variations  in  the  facility 
of  recognition. 

It  may  be  well  to  note,  finally,  that  one  among  the  minor 
questions  to  which  this  theory  of  sensori-motor  association 
suggests  answers,  is  that  of  so-called  'paramnesia,' — the  false 
recognition  of  new  localities,  interiors,  etc.,  the  sense  that  an 
event  has  happened  to  one  before.  It  may  be  due  to  the  arti- 
ficial or  accidental  stirring  up  of  an  old  attention  series.  Any 
new  experience  which  gives  approximately  the  same  strains, 
etc.,  in  the  attention  complex,  as  an  earlier  experience,  would 
seem  familiar,  at  the  same  time  that  it  might  not  be  nor  seem 
objectively  identical. 

1  See  Chap.  XV.,  §  4,  footnote. 

1  Zt.  fiir  Psych.,  VII.,  March,  1894,  p.  68. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  ATTENTION 

§  i.    Voluntary  Attention 

THE  foregoing  examination  of  current  theories  of  devel- 
opment has  served  to  throw  into  relief  the  elements  of  the 
problem.  It  has  also  shown  that  a  theory  of  adaptation 
must  have  reference  to  the  repetition  of  stimulations, 
fundamentally,  not  of  movements;  the  theory  developed 
above  —  based  as  it  is  upon  the  work  of  Darwin  and  Spencer 
—  is  consciously  drawn  to  supply  this  want. 

The  three  psychological  stages  or  levels  at  which  we  find 
consciousness  getting  new  accommodations  have  already 
been  pointed  out,1  and  the  claim  made  that  the  'law  of  excess,' 
enunciated  above,  applies  to  each  and  all  of  them.  We  have 
already  considered  the  two  lower  stages  and  now  come  to  the 
third.  The  question  is  now,  accordingly,  How  is  the  con- 
scious person  able  to  perform  a  new  movement  voluntarily 
and  with  attention? 

The  first  remark  is  this:  To  make  any  movement  volun- 
tarily, the  attention  must  be  fixed  upon  some  kind  of  an  idea 
which  represents  this  movement.  I  do  not  care  to  repeat  the 
analysis  which  I  have  published  elsewhere,2  and  which  James 
has  also  made,  much  more  forcibly,3  of  volition  back  to  its  last 
citadel  —  voluntary  attention  to  an  idea.  Everybody,  it 
seems,  now  admits  it.  If  the  object  of  volition,  then,  is  a 

1  Above,  Chap.  VII.,  §  i,  ad  fin.       *  Handbook,  II.,  Chaps.  XII.,  XV. 

8  Princ.  oj  Psychology,  Vol.  I..  Chap.  XI. 

428 


Voluntary  Attention  429 

movement,  an  idea  that  means  the,  movement  must  be  at- 
tended to. 

But  in  the  case  of  learning  a  thing  for  the  first  time  the 
movement  required  is  not  an  old,  but  a  new  one : *  hence 
it  cannot  be  a  mental  image  or  memory  of  the  movement, 
to  which  the  attention  is  directed ;  it  must  be  an  external 
movement  or  event,  of  some  kind,  which  yet  in  some  way 
manages  to  send  its  dynamogenic  influence  into  the  motor 
channels  required. 

Now  to  acquire  a  movement  seen,  or  in  some  other  way 
externally  set  up,  —  this  is  exactly  conscious  imitation. 
The  problem  then  reduces  itself  to  the  process  of  persistent 
effortful  imitation ;  and  we  have  to  ask  how  attention  to  a 
movement  seen,  for  example,  enables  the  child  or  man  to  come 
to  perform  this  movement  himself. 

The  process  of  persistent  imitation,  as  far  as  its  mechan- 
ism is  concerned,  has  been  depicted  and  figured  above.2 
The  point  essential  to  our  present  topic  has  also  been  casually 
mentioned,  i.e.  that  the  difference  between  'simple'  and  'per- 
sistent' imitation  of  the  try-try-again  type,  is  that,  in  the 
former,  an  earlier  muscular  movement  is  repeated  without 
variation,  while  in  the  latter,  the  earlier  movement  is  modified 
in  such  a  way  as  to  approximate,  more  and  more  closely,  the 
movement- copy  attended  to. 

In  persistent  imitation  the  first  reaction  is  not  repeated. 

1  Unless,  indeed,  it  has  been  accidentally  performed  before.     It  may  be 
admitted  that  many  useful  acts  are  acquired  by  such  happy  accident,  and 
one  may  say  that  the  'excess'  discharge  is  of   use  largely   in   increasing 
such  happy  hits.     But  no  one  will  deny  that  the '  hits  '  occur  mainly  through 
the  child's  imitations  in  cases  of  complex  action,  such  as  speech,  writing, 
sewing,  etc.     It  has  been  shown,  however,  that  the  former  movement  must 
have  been  innervated  from  the  centre  (that  is,  produced  by  the  person  him- 
self), not  merely  mechanically  produced.    Cf.  Bair  in  Psych.  Review,  VIII., 
1901,  p.  474. 

2  Chap.  XIII.,  §  2. 


430  The  Origin  of  Attention 

Hence  we  must  suppose  the  development  of  a  function  of 
co-ordination  by  which  the  two  regions  excited  respectively 
by  the  original  suggestion  and  the  reaction  first  made,  co- 
alesce in  a  common  more  voluminous  and  intense  stimulation 
of  the  motor  centre.  A  movement  is  thus  produced  which, 
by  reason  of  its  greater  mass  and  diffusion,  includes  more 
of  the  elements  of  the  movement  seen  and  copied.  This 
is  again  reported  by  eye  or  ear,  giving  a  new  excitement, 
which  is  again  co-ordinated  with  the  original  stimulation 
and  with  the  after-effects  of  the  earlier  imitations.  The 
result  is  yet  another  motor  stimulation,  or  effort,  of  still 
greater  mass  and  diffusion,  which  includes  yet  more  ele- 
ments of  the  'copy.'  And  so  on,  until  simply  by  its  in- 
creased mass,  including  the  motor  excitement  of  attention 
itself,  —  by  the  greater  range  and  variety  of  the  motor  ele- 
ments thus  innervated,  —  in  short,  by  the  excess  discharge, 
the  'copy'  is  completely  reproduced.  The  effort  thus  suc- 
ceeds. (See  Fig.  XIV.,  above.) 

This,  it  is  evident,  is  the  principle  of  'motor  excess,'  and 
it  is  natural  to  find  in  it  the  origin  of  the  attention.  The 
attention  is  the  mental  function  corresponding  to  the  habitual 
motor  co-ordination  of  the  processes  of  heightened  or  'excess' 
discharge.  The  exact  elements  which  it  includes  have  al- 
ready been  pointed  out,  and  they  will  be  spoken  of  again. 

Let  the  child  once  withdraw  attention  from  his  copy,  let 
him  be  distracted  by  bird  or  beast,  and  woe  to  his  chance  of 
learning  the  new  movement.  The  whole  conglomerate  con- 
scious content  falls  to  pieces  and  he  goes  back  to  be  a  creature 
of  suggestion.  But  let  him  keep  on  attending  —  strongly, 
faithfully,  well  —  and  note  his  actions.  His  whole  physical 
personality  gets  concentrated  in  conjoint,  then  allied,  then 
unified,  then  convulsive  discharge  upon  the  member  which, 
by  habit  or  previous  use,  is  nearest  to  the  copy  requirement. 


Voluntary  Attention  431 

He  rolls  his  tongue,  bites  his  lip,  sways  his  body,  works  his 
legs,  winks  his  eyes,  etc.,  until  every  scheming  nerve  and 
tendon  bends  to  do  the  task.  His  blood-vessels,  even,  fill 
toward  the  hand  he  works  with.  This  occurs  only  in  attention, 
and  this  is  the  excess  wave  by  which  here  in  the  highest  con- 
sciousness, as  there  in  the  lowest  organism,  accommodation  to 
new  stimulations  is  secured.1 

A  direct  examination  of  the  infant's  earliest  voluntary 
movements  shows  the  growth  in  mass,  diffusion,  and  lack  of 
precision  which  this  theory  requires.  In  acquiring  the  as- 
sociations of  elements  involved  in  successful  handwrit- 
ing,2 the  young  child  uses  hand,  then  hand  and  arm,  then 
hand,  arm,  tongue,  face,  and  finally  his  whole  body.  In 
speaking,  also,  he  'mouths'  his  sounds,  screws  his  tongue  and 
hands,  etc.  And  he  only  gets  his  movements  reduced  to 
order  after  they  have  become  by  effort  massive  and  diffuse. 
I  find  no  support  whatever  in  the  children  themselves,  for 
the  current  view  of  psychologists,  i.e.  that  voluntary  com- 
binations are  gradually  built  up  by  adding  up  earlier  volun- 
tary movements,  muscle  to  muscle,  and  group  to  group.  This 
is  true  only  after  each  of  these  elements  has  itself  become 
voluntary.  Such  a  view  implies  that  the  infant,  at  this  stage, 
has  a  kind  of  separate  consciousness  of  the  different  muscles, 
including  those  which  he  has  never  learned  to  use,  which  is 
false;  and  is  able  to  avail  himself  of  muscles  which  he  has 
not  learned  to  use,  which  is  equally  false  —  not  to  allude  to 
the  fact  that  it  leaves  suspended  in  mid-air  the  problem  as  to 
how  the  new  combination,  intended  and  dwelt  upon  by  atten- 
tion, or  no  longer  held  in  the  attention,3  gets  itself  actually 
carried  out,  in  the  muscles. 

1  A  similar  view  may  now  be  found  in  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan's  Habit 
and  Instinct,  p.  162.  *  See  the  details  given  above,  Chap.  V.,  §  2. 

8  This  is  in  brief  the  answer  to  the  criticism  made  by  some  (e.g.  Royce) 
that  the  theory  gives  no  positive  inhibition  of  the  elements  that  are  not  selected. 


432  The  Origin  of  Attention 

When  muscular  effort  thus  succeeds,  by  the  simple  fact 
of  increased  mass  and  diffusion  of  reaction,  the  useless 
elements  fall  away  because  they  have  no  emphasis.1  The 
correct  elements  are,  on  the  contrary,  reinforced  by  their  agree- 
ment with  the  'copy',  by  the  dwelling  of  attention  upon  them, 
by  the  pleasure  which  accompanies  success.  In  short,  the 
law  of  survival  of  the  fittest  by  natural,  or,  in  this  case,  func- 
tional, selection,  assures  the  persistence  of  the  reaction  thus 
gained  by  effort. 

We  may  merely  note  in  passing,  also,  that  this  theory  of 
the  process  of  voluntary  attention  is  not  open  to  the  objections 
commonly  urged  against  earlier  views.  How  can  we  conceive 
the  relation  of  mind  and  body  ?  The  alternatives  commonly 
recognized  are  three:  either  the  mind  interferes  with  brain 
processes,  or  it  directs  brain  processes,  or  it  does  nothing; 
these  are  the  three.  Now,  on  the  view  here  presented,  none 
of  these  is  true.  The  function  of  the  mind  is  simply  to  have 
a  persistent  presentation  —  a  suggestion,  a  'copy.'  The  law 
of  motor  reaction,  plus  the  accumulated  excess,  does  the  rest. 
The  muscles  express  the  influence  of  the  central  excitement ; 
this  sets  inwards  as  more  excitement,  which  we  call  attention 
and  emotion,  and  this  the  muscles  again  express ;  and  so  on, 
until  by  the  law  of  lavish  outlay,  which  nature  so  of  ten  employs, 
the  requisite  muscular  combination  is  secured  and  persists. 
In  the  words  of  Ziehen,  "the  appearance  of  the  concomitant 
psychical  processes  themselves  is  the  only  fact  that  needs  ex- 
planation. .  .  .  The  fitness  of  actions  is  quite  conceivable 
as  the  result  of  natural  laws."  * 

1  Physiol.  Psychology,  p.  274.  Ziehen  recognizes  the  essential  sameness 
of  the  selecting  process  for  reflex  (phylogenetic)  and  voluntary  (ontogenetic) 
selections.  He  says :  "  In  both  cases  the  process  of  selection  is  the  essential 
factor  in  the  development  of  this  fitness.  In  the  case  of  reflex  action  .  .  . 
this  selection  is  essentially  a  phylogenetic  process :  in  the  case  of  [voluntary] 
actions,  it  is  an  ontogenetic  process." 


Voluntary  Attention  433 

Besides  the  general  fact  that  this  view  makes  the  stimu- 
lus or  copy  the  essential  thing  for  reproduction,  it  takes 
another  step  as  necessary  for  psychology,  I  think,  as  the 
former  is  for  general  biology :  the  identification  of  voluntary 
attention  with  motor  reaction,  at  once  habitual,  in  the  main, 
but  yet  'excessive,'  in  part,  in  the  centres  of  highest  co-ordi- 
nation. Attention  is  essentially  an  accumulation,1  due  to 
continued  selection  in  racial  evolution. 

This  is  considered  a  grave  question  by  many  who  forget 
that  whatever  the  voluntary  life  is,  every  child  has  to  pass 
into  it  from  the  involuntary  life,  without  a  miracle;  and  it 
may  be  well  to  present  some  general  considerations  in  addition 
to  the  facts  of  infant  life  now  mentioned. 

i.  It  should  be  remembered,  I  may  repeat,  that  the 
problem  of  accommodation  is  really  the  problem  of  selection. 
How  does  an  organism  select  the  stimulations  which  are 
profitable  to  it?  It  is  in  answer  to  this  question  that  the 
'excess'  function  is  postulated,  and  has  been  in  the  'in- 
creased nervous  discharge'  of  biological  theories  of  the 
Spencer-Bain  type.  Now  in  attention  we  have,  undoubtedly, 
the  one  selective  function  of  consciousness.  Who  claims  any- 
thing else?  Whatever  attention  may  do  besides,  all  the 
selections  which  consciousness  makes  are  due  to  it.  We  have, 
therefore,  the  requirement  that  these  two  things  should  be 
connected  in  theory,  i.e.  the  adaptations  of  lower  organisms, 
and  the  selections  of  consciousness.  Now  it  only  gives  further 
strength  both  to  the  theory  of  the  biological  selections  of  the 
lower  organisms,  and  to  that  of  the  conscious  selections  of  the 
higher,  if  we  find  that  one  psycho-physical  principle — such  as 

1  This  gives  a  mass  of  'funded'  process  or  internal  congenital  function 
which  all  new  learning  starts  with.  This  is  put  in  evidence  by  Jennings 
(Behaviour  of  Lower  Organisms,  1906).  The  position  taken  here  fully 
allows  for  this  as  against  the  'simple  reflex'  process  of  a  more  mechanical 
theory. 


434  ^e  Origin  of  Attention 

'selection   from    overproduced    movement'  —  runs    through 
the  entire  development. 

2.  Again,  the  conscious  value  of  a  stimulus  to  the  organism 
is,  on  the  whole,  its  pleasure-pain  effect.  This  we  have  iden- 
tified with  some  form  of  psycho-physical  process,  in  the  ner- 
vous centres,  which  tends  to  discharge  in  the  excess  wave.  In 
this  again,  as  has  been  said,  we  are  following  the  best  theories 
of  the  past  (Darwin,  Bain,  Meynert).  If  now  our  proposition 
concerning  attention  be  true,  it  would  follow  that  in  the  higher 
representative  processes,  attention  is  the  great  locus  of  hedonic 
consciousness.  It  is  only  necessary  to  reflect  upon  the  con- 
ditions of  'ideal  tone'  —  the  pleasures  of  the  intellectual  and 
emotional  life  —  in  the  exposition,  for  example,  of  Ward 
and  the  Herbartians,  to  be  convinced  that  this  is  true.  De- 
velopmental considerations  enter  here  to  complicate  the  case ;  * 
but  it  is  sufficient  to  note  in  this  place,  that  pleasure  is,  in 
lower  organisms,  a  sign  of  vital  profit,  and,  by  its  discharge 
in  the  excess  wave,  an  agent  of  adaptation;  and  the  same 
is  true  of  intellectual  and  sentimental  pleasure  and  profit. 
They  indicate  conscious  adaptation  by  the  phenomenon  of 
attention,  which  is  the  genetic  channel  of  an  excess  wave  the 
same  in  kind.  All  the  evidence  which  goes  to  show  that  no 
movement  can  be  made  unless  the  attention  gets  fixed  upon 
some  idea  that  represents  this  movement,  and  that  no  move- 
ment can  be  prevented  upon  the  representation  of  which 
(itself  or  by  proxy)  the  attention  is  fixed  —  all  this  evidence 
shows  also,  that  attention  is  some  kind  of  generalized  motor 
phenomenon.  Generalized,  because  it  bears  equally  on  all 
presented  contents.  All  initiation  of  voluntary  movement  is  a 
matter  of  attention,  and  all  voluntary  inhibition  or  control  of 
movement  a  matter  of  withdrawal  of  attention.  Now  this 
is  just  what  the  excess  wave  ought  to  do  —  come  to  the  aid  of 

1  See  below,  §  3  in  this  chapter,  on  the  '  Development  of  Attention.' 


Reflex  and  '  Primary '  Attention          435 

that  which  claims  it  by  the  right  of  accumulated  selections, 
that  which,  by  this  aid,  is  again  selected,  and  by  its  with- 
drawal prevent  that  which  should,  by  the  same  tests,  be 
neglected  and  eliminated. 

§  2.   Reflex  and  'Primary'  Attention 

I  have  elsewhere  argued  for  the  view  that  reflex  attention  is 
an  affair  of  motor  association.  The  facts  so  evidently  show 
that  there  is  no  mental  initiative  in  the  case  of  a  violent 
drawing  of  attention  —  as  by  a  clap  of  thunder,  or  a  flash  of 
light  —  that  the  problem  is,  not  to  prove  that  the  entire 
psychological  phenomenon  is  a  change  in  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness, but  merely  to  determine  what  kind  of  a  change  it 
is.  I  have  proposed  to  call  consciousness  when  occupied  with 
such  reflex  attention  'reactive,'  since  the  essential  thing  about 
reflex  attention  is  the  attitude  or  reactive  condition  in  which 
one  finds  himself  as  soon  as  his  surprise  —  after  such  a  clap 
of  thunder  —  allows  him  to  ask  himself  the  question.  Cer- 
tain muscular  tensions,  varying  somewhat  with  the  kind  of 
sensation  or  image  to  which  his  attention  is  drawn  —  this 
seems  to  be  all  he  finds.  It  seems  quite  in  the  line  of  fact, 
therefore,  to  say  that  reflex  attention  is  a  consciousness  of  a 
group  of  muscular  and  organic  processes  fixed  in  certain  forms 
by  habit. 

The  earliest  form  of  attention,  however,  is  that  brought  out 
in  low  organisms  by  sense  stimulations.  It  may  be  called 
'  primary  attention  or  conation,'  in  the  phrase  of  late  writers 
(Hoffding,  Ward),  considered  as  the  active  side  of  con- 
sciousness. It  is  by  indulgence  only  that  the  term  'attention' 
is  used  for  it,  since  when  we  use  that  word  we  have  in  mind 
so  distinctly  the  exact  tensions  and  contractions  habitual  in 
our  developed  lives  of  attention.  But  if  the  general  view 


436  The  Origin  of  Attention 

now  advocated  be  true,  we  should  expect  to  find,  in  all  con- 
sciousness, the  presence  of  such  a  motor  element ;  and  while 
in  any  particular  case  the '  motor  associates '  may  not  be  special 
enough  to  give  well-marked  tone  to  the  content,  yet  it  should, 
in  its  real  nature,  be  called  a  phenomenon  of  attention.  The 
place  of  this  early  attention  may  be  made  plainer  in  the  next 
paragraph. 

§  3.    The  Development  of  Attention:  Sensori-motor 
Association 

Assuming  the  answer  now  given  to  the  question  of  the 
mechanism  of  speech,  considered  as  a  typical  voluntary  func- 
tion, some  additional  considerations  arise  which  bring  us  back 
to  our  problem  of  the  development  of  attention.1 

In  the  first  place,  I  find  in  my  own  case  and  from  experi- 
ments with  others,  that  the  presence  or  absence  of  elements 
of  movement  in  the  consciousness  of  a  word  depends  in  many 
individuals  largely  upon  the  direction  of  the  attention.2  If  the 
attention  be  directed  to  the  vocal  organs,  —  either  one's  own, 
or  some  one  else's,  —  movements  of  the  tongue,  lips,  and 
larynx  are  clearly  felt  in  the  organs,  sometimes  also  by 
touch,  and  may  be  seen.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  attention 
be  directed  to  the  ear,  and  the  words  be  thought  of  as  sounds, 
these  muscular  sensations  fall  perceptibly  away  or  disappear. 
This  indicates  that  there  are  two  great  speech  types,  a  motor 
type  arid  a  sensory  type,  according  as  the  attention  is  given  in 
one  direction  or  the  other  —  a  distinction  of  types  now  familiar 
in  connection  with  reaction-time  experiments. 

The  reaction  time  is,  in  a  great  percentage  of  cases,  shorter 

1  See  the  article  already  mentioned  in  the  Philosophical  Review,  II.,  1893, 
pp.  385  ff.,  for  the  statement  of  some  of  these  points,  with  observations. 

2  Paulhan  notices  this  influence  of  the  attention  (loc.  cit.,  p.  43),  but  does 
not  inquire  into  it. 


The  Development  of  Attention  437 

when  the  attention  gives  a  so-called  'motor'  reaction,  i.e. 
is  directed  to  the  reacting  member,  rather  than  to  the  signal. 
I  have  experimented  to  some  extent  with  a  view  to  finding  in 
what  per  cent,  of  individuals  one  kind  of  hand  reaction  is 
normal  as  against  the  other  kind.  The  results  show  that, 
among  uninstructed  groups  of  students,  reacting  for  the  first 
time  in  the  laboratory,  about  one-quarter  of  the  entire  num- 
ber, when  questioned  immediately  after  giving  a  series  of 
sound -hand  reactions,  were  clearly  conscious  of  having  paid 
attention  to  the  movement  of  the  hand.  The  average  time 
of  their  reactions  is  considerably  lower  than  the  general 
average.  This  result  shows  clearly,  not  only  that  the  differ- 
ence in  time  of  the  two  kinds  of  reactions  is  a  real  difference 
in  many  persons,  but  also  that  there  are  individuals  who  nor- 
mally react  most  readily,  and  most  effectively,  in  one  way  or 
the  other.  One  of  the  bearings  on  speech  is  this :  it  becomes 
at  once  evident  that  the  most  rapid  speakers  are  generally, 
ceteris  paribus,  'motors'  in  their  type.  The  direction  of  the 
attention  serves  to  arouse  the  organs  of  speech  in  advance, 
by  an  influence  the  nature  of  which  is  still  to  be  explained.1 

Now  certain  questions  arise  here  which  are  directly  per- 
tinent to  our  present  topic:  Is  a  person  motor,  visual,  or 
auditory,  in  his  speech,  and  in  his  reactions  generally,  because 
he  has  strengthened  a  particular  kind  of  memories  by  the  pre- 
vailing concentration  of  his  attention  upon  them?  Or  does 
he  give  motor  or  sensory  attention  and  reaction,  because  of  the 
predominant  strength  of  a  certain  class  of  his  memories? 
Probably  both  of  these  positions  are  true;  and  each  of  them  is 
of  great  importance  in  the  education  of  speech,  and  other 
motor  functions,  as  well  as  for  the  theory  which  is  here 

1  To  quote  my  own  case  again  —  I  find  it  impossible  to  think  of  a  French 
sentence  without  keeping  my  attention  on  the  visual  picture  of  the  printed 
signs ;  but  I  can  follow  a  German  sentence  by  memories  of  speech  movements 
with  no  trace  of  visual  attention. 


438  The  Origin  of  Attention 

developed.  The  case  seems  to  be  the  exhibition,  on  a  large 
scale,  of  what  we  find  to  be  true  of  the  relation  of  attention  to 
sensations  generally.  Increased  intensity  of  sensation  tends 
to  draw  the  attention ;  and  the  attention  increases  the  intensity 
of  sensations.  It  is  one  of  those  processes  of  '  reasoning  in  a 
circle'  which  characterize  the  growth  of  body  and  mind 
together.  Another  instance  is  this,  for  which  we  have  al- 
ready seen  some  probable  reasons:  pleasure  arises  from 
healthy  function,  while  healthy  function  is  directly  assisted 
by  pleasure. 

The  relation  which  we  have  now  discovered,  however, 
between  a  person's  'type,'  and  the  movements  and  habits  of 
his  attention,  is  capable  of  a  clear  psycho-physical  explana- 
tion. 

We  know  that  increasing  intensity  of  sensation  liberates 
energy  increasingly  toward  the  motor  centres.  A  strong  sen- 
sation tends  to  excite  more  movement  than  a  weak  one.  It 
is  probable,  therefore,  that  a  given  degree  of  intensity  of  each 
particular  sense-quality  involves  a  motor  ingredient,  as  an 
element  in  its  conscious  value  —  be  it  in  part  due  to  a  setting- 
back  process  from  the  motor  centres  themselves,  or  in  whole 
to  the  stirring  up  of  revival  processes  in  the  kinassthetic  cen- 
tres. The  distinction  between  sensory  and  motor  conscious- 
ness is  largely  logical ;  all  consciousness  is  both.  Every  sen- 
sation reverberates  outwards  in  the  muscles,  and  this  muscular 
resonance  reacts  back  upon  the  sensory  factor.  But  it  is 
clear  that  the  largest  amount  of  the  motor  'ingredient' 
attaches  to  the  most  intense  sensation. 

Now  we  also  know  that  the  exercise  of  attention  involves 
a  large  amount  of  motor  process ;  its  constant  and  necessary 
accompaniments  are  motor.  Consequently  the  rising  tide 
of  motor  incitation  due  to  the  rising  intensity  of  sensation  is 
an  increasing  stimulus  to  the  attention,  by  a  radiation  of  pro- 


The  Development  of  Attention  439 

cesses  in  the  centres  of  movement.  So  we  have  a  valid  reason 
for  the  general  fact  that  an  increase  of  intensity  of  sensation 
tends  to  draw  and  hold  the  attention. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  ordinary  opinion  is  true,  that  the 
idea  of  a  movement  is  already  the  beginning  of  that  move- 
ment. In  the  light  of  this  principle  it  is  easy  to  see  that,  when 
I  turn  my  attention  to  a  sensation,  I  in  so  far  start  into  more 
vigorous  existence  the  motor  ingredients  and  associations  of 
that  sensation.  This  in  turn  tends  to  bring  out  more  intensely 
the  sensory  ingredients,  and  so  the  second  aspect  of  our 
'  reasoning  in  a  circle'  is  made  clear;  i.e.  that  attention  height- 
ens the  intensity  of  sensations.1 

This  process  of  radiation,  or  mutual  overflow,  among  the 
different  motor  centres  —  if  they  be  different  —  is  not  hypo- 
thetical. All  theories  demand  it.  It  is  simply  a  question, 
in  any  special  case,  as  to  how  far  the  circle  of  influence  of  one 
motor  process  may  extend  to  neighbouring  fibres  and  cells. 
And  if  the  theory  be  true  that  attention  is  just  the  most  habit- 
ual of  all  forms  of  motor  reaction  —  because  extending  far 
back  in  the  race  history  of  organic  accommodation  —  then 
the  direct  arousing  of  the  attention  by  changes  in  mental 
content  is  fully  explained  in  the  way  supposed. 

To  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell  —  just  in  so  far  as  the  motor 
ingredient  of  a  mental  content  of  any  kind  is  large,  that  is,  in 

1  On  the  original  publication  of  the  article  containing  this  position, 
Professor  Hoffding,  in  a  private  letter,  called  my  attention  to  the  following 
quotation  from  his  Outlines  of  Psychology  (p.  316),  which  clearly  takes  the 
same  general  ground  as  to  the  cause  of  heightened  intensities  when  attention 
is  aroused :  "  It  is  possible  that  impulses  return  from  the  centres  with  which 
the  voluntary  concentration  of  consciousness  is  linked,  to  the  centres  of 
sensuous  perception  (as  in  other  cases  to  motor  centres),  in  which  way  their 
effect  may  be  strengthened.  This  would  be  the  physiological  form  of  the 
psychological  fact  that  an  idea  becomes  clearer  if  we  give  ourselves  up  to  pic- 
turing it "  (italics  mine).  See  also  his  reference  to  Wundt  (Physiol. 
Psychologic,  I.,  pp.  233  f.). 


44-O  The  Origin  of  Attention 

so  far  as  the  sensory  ingredient  is  intense,  just  to  this  degree 
will  the  direction  of  the  attention  be  secured,  and  to  this 
degree  also  will  both  the  ingredients  be  intensified  by  this  act 
of  attention.  The  two  facts,  therefore,  that  intensity  draws 
attention,  and  attention  increases  intensity,  may  be  stated 
in  terms  of  a  single  principle  which  I  venture  to  call,  in  view 
of  the  doctrine  of  association  already  explained,  the  'law  of 
sensori-motor  association,'  i.e.  every  mental  state  is  a  fusion 
of  sensory  and  motor  elements,  and  any  influence  which 
strengthens  the  one,  tends  to  strengthen  the  other  also. 

The  reflex  attention  which  follows  upon  increased  intensity 
of  sensory  excitation  may  be  considered,  therefore,  in  conform- 
ity with  what  has  already  been  said,  the  return  wave  of  re- 
vived motor  associates;  and  the  increased  intensity  which 
follows  the  direction  of  the  attention  is  due  to  the  presence  of 
this  return  wave,  by  the  reverse  association.1 

This  principle  also  goes  far  to  explain  the  relation  to  each 
other  of  the  two  so-called  laws  which  are  usually  stated  in- 
dependently in  connection  with  reaction  times:  (i)  greater 
intensity  of  stimulus  diminishes  the  reaction  time,  and  (2) 
motor  reactions  are  generally  shorter  than  sensory.  Both  are 
ready  deductions  from  the  '  law  of  sensori-motor  association.' 
As  for  the  first  law,  that  more  intense  stimulation  gives  a 
shorter  reaction  than  less  intense,  the  reason  of  it  is  now 
evident.  It  is  because  the  more  intense  stimulus  arouses 

1  WaUaschek  (Zeit.  fur  Psychologic,  VII.,  Heft  i,  March,  1894,  p.  67) 
criticises  this  view  on  the  ground  that  only  in  persons  of  the  motor  type 
—  of  speech,  for  example  —  would  there  be  the  necessary  '  motor  associates.' 
But  this  is  the  reverse  mistake  to  that  made  by  Fere,  noticed  above  in  an- 
other connection,  who  says  that  the  law  of  dynamogenesis  makes  it  necessary 
that  all  should  be 'motors'  in  type.  Both  fail  to  distinguish  between  the 
general  dynamogenic  influence  of  a  stimulus,  which,  by  the  law  of  'sensori- 
motor  association,'  implicates  the  attention,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  kinaes- 
thetic  motor  images  of  memory,  which  represent  the  particular  movements, 
easy  attention  to  which  marks  the  'motor  type.'  See  also  Appendix  C,  II. 


The  Development  of  Attention  441 

more  and  stronger  motor  associates ;  or,  put  physiologically, 
because  it  has  greater  dynamogenic  effect,  and  so  facili- 
tates motor  discharge,  both  directly  into  the  reacting 
muscles,  and  indirectly  by  its  readier  influence  in  getting  the 
attention. 

Now  as  for  the  second  fact,  which  holds  for  the  majority 
of  people,  its  explanation  also  follows.  Experiments  show 
that  the  reaction  time  is  shorter  when  the  signal  is  foreknown 
and  the  attention  is  consequently  not  drawn  to  it,  but  is  left 
free  to  seek  some  further  facilitating  cue.  This  cue  is  found, 
of  course,  in  persons  accustomed  to  depend  upon  their  motor 
memories  for  various  voluntary  actions,  in  the  thoughts  of 
the  movements  actually  to  be  made  in  reacting.  And  so  the 
'  motor  reaction '  is  directly  prepared  for.  In  these  cases,  a 
particular  kind  of  motor  association  is  emphasized  by  the 
direct  act  of  attention.  The  motor  associates  are  pictured, 
dwelt  upon,  emphasized  beforehand,  the  motor  centres 
are  put  into  a  state  of  high  potential,  the  stimulus  is  left  to 
discriminate  itself  without  attention  —  and  thus  the  reaction 
time  is  shortened.  It  is  evident  that  in  the  sensory  reaction, 
part,  at  least,  of  the  dynamogenic  influence  of  the  stimulus 
goes  with  the  attention,  for  the  discrimination  of  the  signal, 
etc. ;  while,  in  the  motor  reaction,  it  all  goes  into  the  reac- 
tion, which  is  already  prepared  for  by  motor  attention.1 

It  is  an  evident  corollary,  also,  that  only  in  persons  of  the 
motor  type  would  the  motor  reaction  be  shorter  than  the  sen- 
sory ;  for  it  supposes  a  ready  habit  of  using  motor  memories 
mainly  in  voluntary  movement.  Persons  trained,  however, 
to  use  auditory  and  visual  memories  as  the  instrument  of 

1  It  is  only  what  we  would  expect  that,  when  the  stimulus  (signal)  is  not 
intense  enough  to  carry  its  own  discrimination,  either  the  reaction  takes  place 
upon  a  false  stimulus,  or  the  attention  shifts  from  the  movement  to  the 
stimulus,  and  the  time  is  lengthened. 


442  The  Origin  of  Attention 

attention,  find  their  reaction  time  lengthened  *  when  they 
come  to  pay  close  attention  to  the  movements  which  they  are 
about  to  make. 

Applying  this  thought  to  the  rise  of  speech  and  its  method, 
we  find  abundant  reason  for  the  variety  of  types  found  among 
adults.  Visual,  auditory,  and  motor  memories  of  words  date 
back  to  early  childhood,  and  do  not  arise  synchronously. 
Visual  pictures  of  figure  arise  and  get  comparatively  fixed  in 
childhood  some  months  before  the  child  begins  to  speak  or 
write,  as  is  shown  by  its  recognition  of  simple  figures,  animals, 
and  later,  letters.  Auditory  images,  also,  date  very  far  back ; 
this  is  seen  in  the  very  early  recognition  of  words  heard. 
Special  graphic  memories,  on  the  contrary,  are  the  latest  of  all. 
The  ability  to  trace  outlines  which  have  been  already  recog- 
nized,2 arises  only  after  considerable  progress  has  been  made 
in  speaking,  and  the  progress  in  speaking  is,  in  turn,  relatively 
much  later  in  its  rise  than  visual  and  auditory  recognition. 
So  the  probable  order  in  which  these  different  elements  of 
the  speech  faculty  would  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
'  law  of  sensori-motor  association '  is  about  this :  auditory, 
visual,  speech-motor,  hand -motor  (writing)  memories.  And 
a  similar  genetic  analysis  might  be  made  out  for  other  com- 
plex activities,  if  the  facts  were  carefully  observed. 

1  Cases  in  which  the  sensory  time  was  shorter  than  the  motor  have,  in  fact, 
been  reported  by  Cattell  (Phil.  Stud.,  VIII.,  1892,  p.  403),  Flournoy  (Arch, 
des  Sci.  Phy.  et  Nat.,  vol.  27,  p.  575,  and  vol.  28,  p.  319,  quoted  in  Rev. 
Philos.,  April,  1893,  p.  444),  and  Baldwin  (Medical  Record,  April  15,  1893, 
p.  455).  See  also  Titchener,  Mind,  October,  1895,  and  April,  1896;  Angell 
and  Moore,  Psych.  Rev.,  May,  1896;  Flournoy,  Quelques  Types  de  Reaction 
Simple,  1896.  The  explanation  given  in  the  text  was  proposed  by  me  in  the 
paper  cited.  See  my  extended  report  of  results  with  discussion  of  those  of 
Cattell  and  Flournoy,  and  a  new  case,  in  The  Psychological  Review,  II.,  1895 
('Studies  from  the  Princeton  Laboratory,'  p.  259),  and  a  defence  of  the 
'type  theory  of  simple  reaction'  in  Mind,  January,  1896. 

1  What  is  called  'tracery  imitation'  above,  Chap.  V.,  §  i. 


The  Development  of  Attention  443 

This  means  that  auditory  and  visual  memories  get  a  good 
'  start '  on  the  other  varieties  in  the  genetic  process.  They 
acquire  considerable  influence  over  the  attention,  which  is 
largely  reflex  at  that  early  period,  and  they  become  in  turn 
relatively  easy  of  revival,  before  the  specific  motor  memories 
are  well  begun.  Here  is  sufficient  reason  —  quite  apart  from 
congenital  tendencies  which  may.  be  the  controlling  factor  — 
for  the  existence  of  auditory  and  visual  speech  types.  Habits 
thus  arise  which,  on  the  mental  side,  express  the  readiest 
sensori-motor  associations.  They  amount  to  what  some 
have  called  '  pre-perceptions,'  or  better,  perhaps,  'pre-ap- 
perceptions.'  On  the  physical  side  these  habits  represent 
preferential  dynamic  tensions  among  those  paths  of  discharge 
whose  functions  merge,  in  common,  in  that  of  the  attention. 
The  law  signalized  above  tends,  of  course,  as  life  advances, 
to  consolidate  these  particular  sensori-motor  couples;  and 
so  one  particular  kind  of  attention  tends  to  become  a  per- 
manent trait  of  the  mental  life,  unless  the  other  connections 
which  are  subsequently  brought  into  use,  be  of  sufficient 
strength  to  supersede  that  originally  most  used.  This  latter, 
however,  may  happen  in  any  of  several  instances :  either  from 
inherited  tendency,  or  from  the  strength  of  other  motor 
habits ;  or,  in  course  of  time,  by  dint  of  continued  practice 
in  one  selected  kind  of  attention. 

It  would  seem,  accordingly,  that  the  'auditory  speech' 
type  should  be  found  most  frequently  among  unliterary 
people,  and  among  those  who  have  not  had  extended  lin- 
guistic training,  or  large  practice  in  writing  and  reading. 
The  particular  influences  which  are  lacking  in  this  type  are 
present  in  the  training  which  the  attention  gets  in  people  of 
the  '  motor  type.' 

We  have  now  reached,  by  the  psychological  and  genetic 
analysis  of  speech,  a  result  which,  it  is  evident,  confirms  our 


444  The  Origin  of  Attention 

general  theory  of  attention.  The  law  of  '  sensori-motor  asso- 
ciation' is  a  generalization  on  the  side  of  consciousness,  from 
particular  cases  of  dynamogenesis,  each  of  which  shows,  on 
the  nervous  side,  the  working  of  the  law  of  'functional  selec- 
tion.' It  is  just  by  and  for  this,  as  we  have  seen,  that  atten- 
tion has  developed.  It  is  a  reaction  of  motor  character  upon 
sense  qualities  and  mental  contents  generally,  varying  in  its 
degree  of  ease  and  effectiveness,  according  to  the  amount  of 
habit  and  structural  growth.  On  the  other  hand,  the  law 
of  'functional  selection'  of  movements  is  a  generalization  of 
the  nervous  process  by  which  each  of  such  habits  gets  started, 
as  representing  a  new  accommodation  of  the  organism. 

Closer  observation  of  states  of  attention  also  leads  us  to 
note  some  more  facts  and  their  explanations.  We  find  on 
examining  consciousness,  that  attention  is  not  a  fixed  thing, 
a  faculty,  any  more  than  are  memory  or  imagination.  Yet 
in  much  of  the  literature  of  late  years,  in  which  the  'facul- 
ties '  have  been  scouted,  I  know  of  no  author  who  has  applied 
his  own  criticisms  consistently  to  the  attention.  Attention  is 
still  treated  as  a  constant  quantity,  a  fixed  thing,  the  same 
for  all  the  exercises  of  it,  and  for  all  the  contents  to  which 
it  gives  its  reaction.  Memory,  on  the  contrary,  is  now  known 
to  be  a  function  of  the  content  remembered;  and  not  a 
faculty  which  takes  up  the  content  and  remembers  it.  So 
we  have  no  longer  one  memory,  but  many :  visual,  auditory, 
motor  memories.  Yet  the  very  same  thing  is  true  of  atten- 
tion; we  have  not  one  attention,  but  many.  Attention  is  a 
function  of  the  content,  not  a  faculty  that  takes  up  the  con- 
tents ;  and  it  is  only  as  different  contents  attended  to,  overlap 
and  repeat  one  another,  that  they  have  somewhat  the  same 
function  of  attention. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  however,  why  it  is  that  attention  has 
been  left  largely  untouched  in  the  recent  reduction  of  mental 


The  Development  of  Attention  445 

functions  to  changes  in  content.  It  is  for  just  the  same  reason 
that  the  notion  of  self  has  been  left  over  by  criticism  likewise, 
as  was  intimated  above.1  The  reason  is  a  genetic  one.  It  is 
evident  that  here,  as  in  many  other  cases,  we  have  to  note 
the  tendency  of  many  sensory  stimulations  to  discharge  them- 
selves through  common  motor  channels.  The  contrast  be- 
tween pleasure  and  pain  tends,  of  course,  to  make  a  great 
line  of  division  between  the  motor  associates  of  some  contents 
and  those  of  others ;  such  as  that  between  reaching  and  with- 
drawing movements.  As  the  senses  develop,  further  divisions 
arise.  But  it  nevertheless  remains  true  that  a  balance  of 
motor  contraction,  reverberation,  effort,  is  common  to  all 
contents,  and  so  becomes  part  of  the  fixed  expression  of  all 
definite  states  of  consciousness.  This  fixed  grouping  of  motor 
elements  is,  in  its  reaction  upon  the  content  which  arouses  it, 
the  fixed  element  in  attention  (certain  tensions  of  brow,  jaws, 
skin  of  head,  etc.,  —  the  A  element  in  the  formula  given 
above  for  attention 2) ;  and  this  makes  attention  seem  to  be 
a  faculty  of  constant  value.  So  it  is  that  certain  organic  and 
muscular  feelings  contribute  a  certain  sameness  to  the  sense 
of  self. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  actual  content  of  attention  feel- 
ing is  half  different,  more  or  less,  from  sense  to  sense.  We 
nave  —  im6f  i  have  —  a  feeling  so  different  when  I  attend  to 
a  sound  from  that  when  I  attend  to  a  light,  that  it  is  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  that  I  find  any  strains  or  stresses  in 
head,  body,  or  limb  quite  the  same  in  the  two.  And  when 
we  come  to  the  difference  between  attention  to  any  such 
sense  content  and  attention  to  an  ideal  content,  —  even 
though  the  latter  be  the  memory  of  the  very  same  sense- 

1  See  above,  Chap.  XI.,  §  3.     The  chapters  of  James  and  Bradley  (A ppear- 
ance  and  Reality,  Chap.  IX.)  are  remarkable  exceptions,  however. 
*  Chap.  X.,  §  3. 


446  The  Origin  of  Attention 

thing,  —  the  whole  feeling  of  attention  is  again  extraordinarily 
changed.  In  all  these  cases  the  content  felt  as  attention  is 
motor;  but  it  is  yet  as  varied  as  all  the  other  habitually 
varied  motor  responses  which  have  been  found  useful  hi  the 
race  history  of  the  organism.  Its  variable  elements  are  the 
a+a  values  of  the  formula  A  +  a+ a. 

Very  cursory  observation  of  certain  animals  shows  these 
facts  in  forms  fixed  by  their  varied  habits  of  life.  One  has 
only  to  ride  an  intelligent  horse  regularly  to  be  convinced 
not  only  that  most  of  his  mental  processes  may  be  conducted 
through  his  ears,  —  an  effect  exaggerated,  perhaps,  by  the 
'blinders'  which  are  put  over  horses'  eyes  when  in  harness, 
—  but  that  his  attention  is  then  auditory.  He  shows  his 
hopes,  fears,  expectations,  curiosities,  etc.,  by  ear  move- 
ments. In  the  rabbit  and  other  animals  in  whom  the  olfactory 
lobes  are  largely  developed  for  purposes  of  utility,  a  distinct 
type  of  memory  and  attention  is  probably  developed  in  con- 
nection with  smell,  an  olfactory  type.  The  constant  move- 
ments of  the  tip  of  the  snout  in  many  such  animals  when 
exploring  for  food,  etc.,  by  smell,  shows  the  development  of 
delicate  smell-motor  reflexes  analogous  to  our  eye-motor 
reflexes  and  the  horse's  ear-motor.  Attention  in  these  cases 
is  probably  reactive  largely,  but  for  that  reason  its  connection 
with  one  sense  is  all  the  more  simple  and  striking. 

Cases  from  pathology,  also,  show  the  actual  dependence 
often  of  a  particular  motor  function  upon  the  single  sense 
which  trained  the  attention  in  the  learning  of  this  action. 
Bastian  1  quotes  the  case  of  an  aphasic  patient,  who  spelt 
aloud  a  word  wrongly  as  he  wrote  it  (candd  for  cat),  but  at  the 
same  time  pronounced  it  correctly,  as  he  heard  it.  This 
means  that  his  spelling  movements,  letter  by  letter,  had 
been  learned  in  association  with  the  making  of  the  letters 

1  Brain  as  Organ  of  Mind,  pp.  60-62. 


The  Development  of  Attention  447 

and  the  sight  of  them,  while  the  learning  of  the  word  pro- 
nunciation, as  a  whole,  had  been  in  connection  with  its  sound. 

But  further  still,  in  the  same  line.  I  do  not  think  that 
we  ever  —  even  in  successive  attentions  to  the  very  same 
thing  under  the  most  uniform  conditions  —  have  exactly  the 
same  attention  feeling  twice.  Why  should  not  attention, 
like  everything  else,  be  subject  to  the  changing  effects  of 
habit  and  accommodation?  Indeed,  it  is  the  very  outcome 
and  exponent  of  these  principles,  as  I  have  just  been  arguing. 
And  then,  too,  dynamogenesis,  the  basis  of  all  the  excess 
energies  which  are  crystallized  into  habits,  still  works  on, 
and  is  working  on  in  every  attentive  reaction  which  we  make. 
For  all  these  reasons,  we  see  that  no  two  acts  of  attention  can 
be  just  the  same.1  And  the  variable  element  is  the  a  of  the 
formula. 

One  additional  point  may  be  merely  noted  here;  it  has 
had  some  enforcement  in  earlier  chapters.  We  should  expect 
this  change  in  motor  reaction,  from  act  to  act  of  attention, 
to  have  some  equivalent  in  consciousness;  some  equivalent 
apart  from  change  in  the  particular  content  itself  which 
stimulates  the  attention  —  some  generalized,  vague,  un- 
analyzable  feelings.  And  so  we  have  found.  Recognition 
is  one  such  feeling,  and  Belief  is  another.  I  have  argued 
independently  over  them  both  —  apart  from  the  genetic  as- 
pect of  the  case  —  and  found  them  to  be  just  this,  felt  atti- 
tudes toward  particular  contents.2 

1  I  think  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  test  this  theory  of  attention  by  the 
dynamogenic  method  of  experiment  suggested  by  Miinsterberg,  The  Psycho- 
logical Review,   1894,  441  ff. 

2  Cf.  Chap.  X.,  §  3.     On  Belief,  see  my  Handbook,  II.,  Chap.  VII. .  the 
genetic  theory  of  belief  is  worked  out  in  the  later  work,  Thought  and  Things. 
The  doctrine  of  Recognition,  based  on  the  law  of  '  sensori-motor  association,' 
was  published  in  the  Philos.  Review,  July,  1893.     Professor  Hoffding,  in  a 
private  communication,  makes  the  criticism  that,  on  my  view,  we  would  con- 


448  The  Origin  of  Attention 


§  4.    Voluntary  Acquisition  and  Control 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  see  that  voluntary  movement 
has  three  distinct  stages  of  development  in  each  individual. 
We  find  the  mind  at  first  occupied  with  an  object,  presenta- 
tion, or  stimulus,  which  starts  a  muscular  reaction,  either 
native,  acquired,  or  at  random.  Then  a  little  later  we  find 
the  mind  occupied  with  a  presentation  or  idea  0}  the  move- 
ment thus  made,  which,  with  its  associates,  tends  to  stimulate 
the  corresponding  motor  processes,  and  thus  to  bring  about 
the  same  movement.  And  at  last  we  find  the  mind  occu- 
pied with  an  object  again,  for  the  attainment  of  which  the 
movement  is  a  necessary  but  now  a  subconscious  means. 

The  original  'end'  of  volition,  therefore,  is  simply  the 
image  or  picture  which  starts  the  imitative  reaction.  Sug- 
gestion turns  out  to  be  an  original  motor  stimulus  in  volition, 
as  truly  as  in  the  lower  activities.  The  child  attempts  to 
speak,  for  example,  with  no  attention  to  his  organs  of  speech. 
He  then  learns  that  it  is  by  muscular  effort,  by  persistent 
imitation,  that  he  must  proceed.  Accordingly,  the  muscu- 
lar movement  now  becomes  his  end.  He  strains  to  set  his 
vocal  organs  properly.  His  efforts  to  control  the  organs, 
however,  throw  him,  at  first,  into  great  confusion  and  failure. 
But  after  more  muscular  control  is  acquired,  the  third  stage 
gradually  follows,  as  the  movements  become  habitual.  The 

fuse  two  qualities  which  had  been  repeated  the  same  number  of  times.  This 
would  mean  that  we  have  no  differences  of  attention  for  the  different  sense 
qualities.  But  it  is  evident  that  that  is  not  true,  if  I  am  right  in  saying  that 
the  actual  motor  content,  a,  is  different  for  each  quality,  and  that  we  so  have 
different  attentions,  just  as  we  have  different  memories,  etc.  His  criticism 
shows  —  what  I  said  above  —  that  even  the  best  psychologists  still  look  upon 
attention  as  a  relatively  fixed  'faculty,'  rather  than  as  a  shifting  function  of 
content. 


Voluntary  Acquisition  and  Control         449 

end  is  now  again  a  picture  or  object,  and  the  muscular  con- 
sciousness falls  into  the  background,  as,  for  example,  in  our 
developed  adult  speech,  when  we  think  only  of  the  ideas 
which  we  wish  to  express. 

The  theory  of  motor  development  now  worked  out  throws 
light  also,  I  think,  on  the  vexed  question  of  muscular  con- 
trol —  the  regulation  of  movement  in  amount  and  direction, 
and  its  suppression,  etc.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  material 
of  volition,  the  ideas  or  copies  attended  to  and  imitated,  are 
the  means  of  holding  the  course  of  each  movement  in  check 
by  association.  I  can  repeat  a  movement  only  because  I  am 
able  to  reinstate  in  memory  the  feeling  of  it,  the  copy  ele- 
ments of  it.  But  by  association,  as  we  have  seen,  other 
elements,  such  as  visual,  or  auditory,  or  touch,  memories, 
may  stand  for  the  muscular  memories.  The  whole  manage- 
ment of  a  movement,  therefore,  depends  upon  the  getting 
hold  by  the  attention  of  the  series  of  positions  desired  for  the 
limb  moved,  and  this  can  be  done  only  by  filling  up  the 
attention  with  the  proper  copy  elements  of  sight,  hearing 
or  other,  which  release  the  proper  series  of  motor  discharges, 
and  these  discharges  only. 

The  current  theory  of  'control'  lends  itself  directly  to  this 
view,  hinging,  as  it  does,  upon  the  matching,  term  by  term, 
of  the  movements  being  accomplished  with  a  remembered 
series,  whether  of  sight,  sound,  or  what  not.  The  control 
of  handwriting  described  above  is  a  good  instance.1  The 
current  theory,  however,  neglects  the  process  by  which  the 
series  to  be  matched  is  vividly  held  up  for  voluntary  repro- 
duction. 

This  lack  we  have  attempted  to  supply.  The  view  of  at- 
tention given  in  what  precedes,  teaches  us  that  the  motor 
reaction  of  attention  is  a  function  of  the  content  attended 
1  Above,  Chap.  V.,  §  2. 

2G 


450  The  Origin  of  Attention 

to,  on  the  one  hand ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  part  of 
the  motor  process  in  which  the  whole  content  finds  its  dyna- 
mogenic  expression.  The  office  of  attention,  therefore,  is 
that  of  fixing  the  content  steadily,  on  the  sensory  side,  and 
at  the  same  time  of  releasing  the  associated  discharge  move- 
ments, on  the  motor  side.  Attention  has,  in  each  case,  as 
we  have  seen,  grown  up  in  exactly  this  way,  both  as  an  ex- 
pression of  motor  reverberation  from  typical  and  constant 
accommodations,  and  also  as  itself  the  very  beginning,  by 
the  law  of  'excess,'  of  the  useful  discharges  which  are,  in 
their  acquisition,  associated  with  the  content  in  question. 

Attention  is  the  go-between  between  the  copy  imitated, 
and  the  imitation  which  copies  it.  It  is,  therefore,  the  central 
and,  essential  fact  in  all  voluntary  muscular  control. 

A  further  application  suggests  the  basis  of  a  theory  of  in- 
hibition. The  inhibition  of  movement  is  of  two  kinds,  posi- 
tive and  negative.  Positive  inhibition  we  have  already  found 
in  many  cases  in  the  suppression  of  movements  through  pain. 
This  is  the  basis  of  the  direct  intentional  suppression  of  move- 
ments, even  when  pain  does  not  attach  to  the  movements  as 
such;  for  with  higher  stages  of  mental  development  inhibi- 
tion has  become  a  generalized  selected  function  though  derived 
from  particular  adaptations  secured  under  the  stimulus  of 
pain;  just  as  is  the  case  with  positive  movement  which  no 
longer  has  to  be  actually  pleasurable.  Negative  inhibition, 
on  the  contrary,  is  just  the  absence  of  that  attention  which  is 
necessary  for  the  selection  and  preservation  of  a  movement. 
Diffused  excessive  movements,  which  serve  no  purpose,  are 
killed  by  the  denial  to  them  of  that  fixing  attention  which  is 
necessary  to  render  movements  persistent,  orderly,  and 
habitual. 

This  theory  of  control  by  the  attention  seems  so  plain  in 
its  applications,  that  I  have  taken  space  for  its  summary 


Voluntary  Acquisition  and  Control        451 

statement  here.  Its  development  is  not  necessary,  however, 
to  the  clear  statement  of  our  general  theory,  but  it  may  be 
taken  up  in  another  place.1 

1  I  intimated  this  theory  of  control  in  the  article  in  the  Philosophical  Re- 
view, II.,  p.  406,  from  which  I  may  quote:  "The  correlation  of  various 
images  in  the  attention,  through  their  respective  'motor  ingredients,'  is 
necessary  for  voluntary  activity;  and  where  a  particular  class  of  images  is 
lost,  the  damage  it  works  in  the  mental  life  is  not  alone  the  narrowing  of  the 
content  of  consciousness,  but  it  is  in  many  cases  the  withdrawing  of  that  sup- 
port, without  which  the  voluntary  function  cannot  proceed  at  all.  It  is  the 
co-ordination  of  the  attention,  therefore,  —  what  I  have  elsewhere  called 
'volitional  apperception,'  —  that  every  one  of  the  incoming  sensory  elements 
must  have  part,  at  least,  of  its  regulating  effect  upon  the  efferent  discharge. 
This  is  shown  so  clearly,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  elaborate  article  by  Pick 
on  the  loss  of  voluntary  movement  by  certain  anaesthetics  when  the  eyes  or 
ears  are  closed  ('Die  sogenannte  "  conscience  musculaire," '  Zeitsch.  jur  Psych., 
IV.,  1892,  161  ff.),  that  I  need  not  do  more  than  recognize  the  support  which 
my  article  gets  from  his.  A  collection  of  cases  which  show  the  extreme 
dependence  of  attention  and  voluntary  movement,  in  persons  of  the  visual 
type,  upon  vision,  is  made  by  Dr.  Ireland  in  Journal  of  Ment.  Sci.,  January, 
1893,  pp.  130  f." 


PART    IV 

GENERAL  SYNTHESIS 
CHAPTER  XVI 

SUMMARY:    FINAL  STATEMENT  OF  HABIT  AND  ACCOM- 
MODATION 

§  i.  Summary  of  Theory  0}  Development 1 

AFTER  the  foregoing  detailed  statements  of  facts  and 
theories,  and  the  solution  of  certain  particular  genetic  prob- 
lems, we  may  come  to  a  general  synthesis.  What  is  the  least 
that  we  can  say  about  an  organism's  development  ?  Every- 
body admits  that  two  things  must  be  said :  first,  it  develops 
by  getting  habits  formed ;  and  second,  it  develops  by  getting 
new  adaptations  which  involve  the  breaking  up  or  modifica- 
tion of  habits  —  these  latter  being  called  accommodations. 

The  law  of  habit  may  now  be  stated  generally  in  some 
such  way  as  this:  Habit  is  the  tendency  of  an  organism  to 
continue  more  and  more  readily  processes  which  are  vitally 
beneficial. 

This  principle  we  have  found  an  axiom  in  biology  and 
psychology.  In  psychology  great  instances  of  it  are  readily 
cited  —  instinct,  emotional  expression,  the  performance  of 

1  This  section  is  not  intended  as  a  resume  of  the  entire  book,  but  only  of 
those  points  which  are  needed  for  the  remaining  sections  of  this  chapter. 

In  the  foreign  editions  a  section  is  inserted  here  on  '  Intelligent  Direction 
and  Social  Progress,'  topics  treated  in  English  in  the  work  Development 
and  Evolution. 

452 


Summary  of  Theory  of  Development      453 

movements  pictured  in  the  attention,  even  attention  itself. 
In  order  to  habit,  it  has  become  evident,  the  organism  must 
have  contractility  —  ability  to  make  a  response  in  movement 
to  a  stimulus  —  and  then  it  must  have  some  incentive  to  make 
and  keep  making  the  right  kind  of  movement.  The  essential 
thing  about  habit,  then,  is  this:  the  maintenance  of  advan- 
tageous stimulations  by  the  organism's  own  movements.  Now 
what  is  the  incentive  to  the  right  kind  of  movement?  The 
answer  to  this  question  carried  us  farther. 

Three  answers  are  possible.  The  only  incentive  may  be 
the  actual  stimulus,  altogether  outside  the  organism,  and 
the  right  movement  may  be  only  a  chance  selection  from 
many  random  movements.  This  is  the  ordinery  biological 
theory.  The  stimulus  is  supposed  to  'come  along'  very 
often,  and,  moreover,  to  be  very  varied  in  its  kind,  locality, 
etc. ;  so  that  by  repeating  happy  chance  movements,  habits 
are  formed,  and  by  compounding  the  habits,  these  habits 
become  complex  and  varied.  So  the  creature  develops. 
On  this  view  development  is  entirely  an  expression  of  the  one 
principle  of  nervous  Habit. 

The  second  answer  says:  the  incentive  is  in  part,  as 
before,  outside  the  organism,  that  is,  the  external  stimulus 
must  remain  constant;  but  the  organism,  after  the  first 
reaction  to  the  stimulus,  tends  to  repeat  its  lucky  reactions 
again.  This  is  the  psychological  theory.  It  finds  in  this 
tendency  to  repeat  lucky  movements  the  nervous  analogue 
of  pleasure,  and  makes  it  with  the  principle  of  excess  dis- 
charge, following  upon  pleasure,  the  additional  thing.  There 
is  thus  an  internal  organic  'incentive.'  By  this  the  creature 
'goes  out,'  and  secures  its  own  repetitions  or  avoidances,  but 
only  in  the  lines  of  lucky  chance  accommodations.  This  we 
have  designated  —  in  the  principal  form  in  which  it  has  been 
held  —  the  Spencer-Bain  theory. 


454  Habit  and  Accommodation 

But  this  latter  theory,  superior  as  it  is  to  the  more  mechan- 
ical or  'repetition'  view  of  the  biologists,  has  had  in  its  state- 
ment a  radical  defect,  the  intimations  of  Darwin  —  who 
nowhere,  to  my  knowledge,  fully  expresses  an  opinion  —  pos- 
sibly excepted.  It  has  held,  in  Spencer  and  Bain,  that  the 
pleasure  or  pain  is  from  the  first  secured  by  lucky  adaptive 
movement.  This,  I  have  argued  above  in  detail,  cannot  be 
the  case ;  for  movements  themselves  reflect  pleasure  or  pain 
only  as  they  serve  as  stimuli,  reproduce  stimuli,  or  are  as- 
sociated with  stimuli.  On  the  contrary,  the  stimuli  as  such 
are  the  agents  of  good  or  ill,  pleasure  or  pain ;  and  this  pleas- 
ure or  pain  process  —  index,  as  it  is,  of  the  fundamental  vital 
processes  —  dictates  the  very  first  adaptive  movement  toward 
or  away  from  certain  kinds  of  stimulations.  This  is  the  third 
answer  and  the  correct  one.  Otherwise  the  principle  of 
excess  —  as  in  the  form  of  the  '  heightened  nervous  wave'  of 
Spencer  —  only  serves  to  confirm  in  habits  the  lucky  adapta- 
tions already  hit  upon. 

How  shall  we  further  conceive  the  process  whereby,  from 
many  movements  thus  generally  adated,  some  are  selected 
as  special  adaptations,  or  particular  motor  functions  ?  This, 
it  is  clear,  is  the  question  of  Accommodation.  It  occurs  by 
means  of  excess  reactions.  It  is  opposed  to  habit  in  two 
ways :  first,  it  has  reference  to  new  movements,  —  a  pro- 
spective reference,  —  while  habit  has  reference  always  to 
movements  more  or  less  old,  a  retrospective  reference,  — 
and  so  it  runs  ahead  of  habit;  and  second,  it  tends,  by  the 
selection  of  new  movements,  to  come  into  direct  conflict 
with  old  habitual  movements,  and  so  to  disintegrate  habits. 
Let  us  look,  then,  at  accommodation  also  more  closely, 
gathering  up  what  has  gone  before  in  earlier  chapters. 

In  general  formula:  Accommodation  is  the  principle  by 
which  an  organism  comes  to  adapt  itselj  to  more  complex 


Summary  of  Theory  of  Development       455 

conditions  of  stimulation  by  performing  more  complex  junc- 
tions.1 

Various  functions  have  been  shown  in  what  precedes  to 
illustrate  this  principle;  all  functions  which  the  individual 
has  learned.  Learning  to  act  is  just  accommodation,  noth- 
ing more  nor  less.  Speech,  tracery,  handwriting,  piano- 
playing,  all  motor  acquisitions,  are  what  accommodation 
is,  i.e.  adaptations  to  more  complex  conditions.  The  com- 
mon thing  about  them  all  is  evident  from  the  foregoing  state- 
ment of  the  requirements  of  development:  the  maintenance 
of  stimulus  by  selection  from  excessive  motor  discharges.  This 
is  Imitation.  In  brief,  any  reaction  whatever,  no  matter  how 
produced,  —  by  accident,  by  suggestion,  by  obedience,  by 
volition,  by  effort,  under  stress  of  pain  or  excitement  of  pleas- 
ure, —  any  reaction  by  which  a  useful  stimulus  is  hailed 
back  and  enjoyed,  or  a  damaging  one  fled  from  and  escaped, 

—  any  such  is  a  case  of  accommodation,  and  falls  under  the 
principle  of  '  circular  reactions '  or '  Imitation '  now  expounded. 

But  continued  accommodation  is  possible  only  because 
the  other  principle,  habit,  all  the  time  conserves  the  past  and 
gives  points  d'appui  in  solidified  structure  for  new  accom- 
modations. Inasmuch,  further,  as  the  copy  becomes,  by 
transference  from  the  world  to  the  mind,  capable  of  internal 
revival,  in  memory,  accommodation  takes  on  a  new  character 

—  a  conscious,  subjective  character  —  in  Volition.    Volition 
arises  as  a  phenomenon  of  'persistent  imitative  suggestion,' 
as  we  have  argued.    That  is,  volition  arises  when  a  copy  re- 
membered vibrates  with  other  copies  remembered  or  pre- 
sented, and  when  all  the  connections,  in  thought  and  action, 
of  all  of  them,  are  together  set  in  motion  incipiently.    The 
'set'  of  motives  together  with  a  certain  excess  function  is  what 

1  Compare  with  these  statements  of  Habit  and  Accommodation,  those 
given  above,  Chap.  VII.,  §  7. 


456  Habit  and  Accommodation 

we  call  attention ;  and  the  final  co-ordination  of  all  the  motor 
elements  involved  is  volition.  The  physical  basis  of  memory, 
association,  thought,  is,  therefore,  that  of  will  also,  —  the 
cerebrum,  —  and  pathological  cases  show  clearly  that  aboulia 
is  fundamentally  a  defect  of  synthesis  in  perception  and 
memory,  arising  from  one  or  more  breaks  in  the  copy  system 
whose  rise  has  been  sketched  in  what  precedes. 

§  2.  Interaction  of  Habit  and  Accommodation 

We  have  seen  —  to  proceed  farther  on  our  way  —  that 
there  is  one  type  of  reaction,  and  only  one,  in  which  these 
two  principles  have  a  common  application :  reactions  whose 
issue  tends  to  reinstate,  in  whole  or  part,  the  very  stimulation 
that  started  the  reaction.  Accommodation  is  there,  in  such  a 
reaction,  since  the  advantageous  stimulation  stands  a  better 
chance  of  repetition  if  the  organism  tends  thus  to  get  it ;  but 
since  this  repeated  stimulus  again  stimulates  to  action,  and 
action  again  follows  —  there  also  is  habit.  So  accommo- 
dation, by  the  very  reaction  which  accommodates,  hands  over 
its  gains  immediately  to  the  rule  of  habit.  And  this  is  the 
universal  rule. 

How  true,  as  a  fact,  this  form  of  adaptation  is !  A  fact 
often  noticed,  always  admired,  never  explained  —  that  organ- 
isms move  toward  the  source  of  light  and  heat  and  colour ! 
How  can  an  organism  get  such  a  splendid  property  —  that 
of  being  so  modified  by  what  is  good  for  it,  that  it  itself  re- 
sponds in  a  way  to  get  it  again,  and  then,  by  thus  getting  it 
again,  makes  its  future  enjoyments  of  it  sure  and  easy? 
This  the  theories  given  attempt  to  explain :  by  the  law  of 
'Excess'  with  functional  selection  the  stimulus  is  maintained, 
and  by  the  law  of  '  Sensori-motor  association '  the  process  is 
fixed  in  easy  habit. 


Organic  Centralization  457 

The  interaction  of  these  two  principles,  Accommodation 
and  Habit,  —  Excess  and  Association,  —  gives  rise  to  a  two- 
fold factor  in  every  organic  activity  of  whatever  kind.  In 
organisms  of  any  development  —  where  a  nervous  system, 
say,  is  present,  —  the  environment  being  a  changing  one, 
every  structure,  with  its  function,  represents  a  habit  which  is 
being  constantly  modified  by  the  law  of  accommodation. 
But  these  modifications  themselves,  as  we  have  seen,  pro- 
vide again  for  their  own  habituation ;  so  there  is  a  constant 
erosion,  and  a  constant  accretion,  to  the  net  attainments  of 
the  organism.  And  each  function  can  be  understood  only  hi 
the  light  of  both  the  influences  which  have  contributed  to  it. 
Impulse,  for  example,  is  twofold ;  instinct  is  twofold ;  at- 
tention is  twofold;  emotion  is  twofold:  each  illustrates 
habit,  but  each  has  grown  by  changes  due  to  accommodation. 
Is  not  this  a  reconciliation  in  principle  of  the  opposed  the- 
ories of  these  functions,  one  saying  that  these  great  organic 
functions  came  only  by  composition,  and  the  other  that  they 
came  only  by  selection,  intelligent  or  biological. 

§  3.  Organic  Centralization  and  Specialization 

We  have  now  seen  how  great  habits  are  formed.  '  Natural ' 
and  '  organic  '  selection  fix  them,  and  at  the  same  time  render 
them  more  prominent,  i.e.  as  instincts,  by  erasing  the  evidences 
of  their  origin,  and  abbreviating  the  phylogenetic  process  in 
the  growth  of  the  individual.  I  use  the  phrase  'organic 
centralization'  to  denote  this  great  outcome  of  development, 
—  the  differentiation  of  functions  in  lines  of  adaptation  which 
run  apart,  so  far  as  their  particular  offices  and  structural  prod- 
ucts are  concerned,  but  which  are  yet  centralized.  For  they 
are  centralized  when  considered  together,  as  constituting,  in 
unity  and  plan,  the  common  life  of  the  organism.  When  con- 


458  Habit  and  Accommodation 

sidered  each  for  itself  also,  as  a  well-knit  whole  of  many  co- 
ordinated units,  the  same  centralization  is  shown  about  a 
smaller  centre ;  such  as  the  movements  involved  in  a  particular 
instinct,  or  the  series  of  movements  of  the  facial  muscles  in  an 
'expression.'  There  would  possibly  be  no  need  for  further 
exposition  of  these  points,  since  they  are  corollaries  from  the 
general  theory  already  sketched,  were  it  not  that  there  are 
certain  further  applications. 

There  are  two  such  applications  which  are  new,  I  think, 
and  which  serve  to  gather  into  one  point  of  view  conflict- 
ing opinions  regarding  two  of  the  most  refractory  facts  in 
current  psychology.  I  refer  to  the  question  of  the  existence 
of  special  nerves  for  pleasure  and  pain,  or  either ;  and  to  the 
attention. 

The  question  arises:  If  accommodation  is  secured  by  a 
special  form  of  reaction  called  'excess,'  what  relation  does 
this  reaction  itself  sustain  to  the  principle  of  habit?  Does 
the  excess  function  itself  also  become  centralized?  Does  it 
tend  to  become  a  separate  co-ordinated  function,  as  other 
motor  discharges  do  ? 

It  is  to  be  expected  that,  in  so  far  as  the  environment  in 
which  an  organism  lives  is  constant,  any  accommodation 
reaction  would,  taken  for  itself,  tend  to  become  a  habit. 
So  far  as  the  presumption  goes,  we  should  expect  to  find 
two  great  kinds  of  reaction  implicated  with  pleasure  and 
pain.  The  pain  reaction  would  tend  to  withdraw  the 
organism  from  the  stimulus  which  gives  pain;  and  the 
pleasure  reaction  would  tend  to  bring  the  organism  into 
closer  relation  with  the  stimulus  which  gives  pleasure. 
These  two  kinds  of  reaction  would  be  possible  for  any 
muscular  group  whatever.  All  that  would  then  be  required 
would  be  some  sense  organ  which  would  distinguish  between 
the  conditions  of  stimulation  which  regularly  give  pleasure, 


Organic  Centralization  459 

—  reacting  to  them  with  the  forward  moving  reaction,  — 
and  those  which  regularly  give  pain  —  reacting  to  them  with 
the  withdrawing  movement.  This  is  probably  the  case. 
It  is  directly  confirmed  by  the  views  of  Meynert,  Richet, 
and  Bain,  as  far  as  the  character  of  the  movements  is  con- 
cerned ;  and  by  the  results  of  Dessoir  and  Goldscheider,  as  to 
the  differentiation  of  the  sense  of  pain.  It  then  becomes 
a  matter  of  scientific  discovery  whether  actual  pain  nerves 
exist  or  not,  in  connection  with  any  particular  function. 
That  depends  upon  what  the  race  conditions  of  stimulation 
have  actually  been.  If  the  pain  stimulus  has  been  regular 
and  peculiar  enough,  possibly  it  has  got  itself  a  special  ap- 
paratus ;  research  must  decide.  But  if  not,  then  not.  This 
latter,  the  negative,  is  probably  the  case  with  pleasure.  The 
stimulus  to  pleasant  function  is  so  general  and  normal,  that 
pleasure  has  not  become  well '  specialized '  either  in  the  organ- 
ism, or,  as  is  very  plain,  in  consciousness.  Yet  in  the  special 
cases  in  which  functions  have  been  perpetual,  important,  and 
uniform,  there  we  do  find  pleasure  as  acute  and  definitely  lo- 
calized as  pain  is,  e.g.  in  the  sexual  function,  as  physiologists 
have  noted ;  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  this  function  has 
a  pleasure  nerve  apparatus.  So  it  is  possible  and  probable 
that  pain  is  both  a  sensation,  and  a  quale  or  'tone'  of  other 
sensations,  emotions,  etc. ;  a  sensation,  —  if  it  has  developed 
its  own  apparatus  of  reacting  to  definite,  well-localized 
pain-giving  stimulations  constantly  present ;  a  quale,  —  be- 
cause the  organism  is  never  completely  balanced  in  its  environ- 
ment, the  stimulations  representing  misadjustment  and  pain 
are  not  all  constant,  and  there  are  demands  for  the  more  gen- 
eral function,  as  in  the  intellectual  life.  So  the  accommo- 
dation function  of  pain,  in  connection  with  all  possible 
stimulations,  must  go  on  just  the  same  whether  there  be  a 
sensation  pain  or  not;  especially  in  the  sphere  of  thought, 


460  Habit  and  Accommodation 

sentiment,  and  the  attentive  life,  since  this  is  the  latest, 
most  complex,  and  least  uniform  kind  of  accommodation. 

On  the  physical  side,  too,  the  matter  seems  clear.  The 
excess  process  at  the  basis  of  pleasure  and  pain  finds  channels 
of  outflow  which  serve  over  and  over  again  for  the  reaction 
required  to  repeat  the  pleasure,  or  stop  the  pain.  The  same 
connection  thus  serving  for  many  instances,  becomes  well- 
worn  and  habitual ;  and  so  a  connection  is  formed  —  a  circuit 

—  for  pleasure  or  pain,  like  the  ordinary  sensori-motor  cir- 
cuits.    If  light,  for  example,  considered  as  constant  stimu- 
lation, serves  to  develop,  for  its  different  intensities,  an  organ 

—  the  eye  —  and    certain   nerves,   which  react  only  to  it, 
as  luminous;  why  can  it  not  also  develop,  in  connection  with 
certain  of  its  intensities,  a  further  organ  and  nerve  which 
react  only  to  it  as  painful?    It  is,  indeed,  inevitable  that, 
under  favourable  conditions,  such  a  pain-apparatus  should  be 
developed  and  fixed  by  natural  selection. 

This  recognizes  the  distinction  between  'pleasure  and 
pain'  on  one  side,  and  ' agreeableness  and  disagreeableness,' 
on  the  other,  as  developed  in  recent  work.  Pain  as  sensa- 
tion-content is  distinct  from  pain  as  quale  of  other  contents. 
On  my  view,  this  is  a  distinction  due  to  development.  Pain, 
as  sensation,  is  pain  become  habitual  enough,  under  constancy 
of  stimulation,  to  have  its  own  apparatus,  i.e.  it  is  pain  as 
peripheral  function.  Pain,  on  the  other  hand,  as  quale  of 
mental  content  generally,  is  pain  of  irregular  stimulation,  or 
pain  of  accommodation,  i.e.  pain  as  central  function.  I  do  not 
agree,  therefore,  with  Miinsterberg,  in  finding  in  the  move- 
ments of  flexion  and  extension,  which  my  theory  requires  in 
common  with  his,  the  genetic  sources  of  '  agreeable '  or '  disagree- 
able '  tone.  The  whole  theory  of  development,  as  I  have  shown 
above,  if  it  is  to  move  at  all,  requires  that  this  accommodation 
pain  or  pleasure  be  due,  in  the  first  instance,  to  stimulus,  and 


Organic  Centralization  461 

that  the  flexion  and  extension  movements  be  the  organic  mode 
of  accommodation  to  the  pleasure  or  pain-giving  stimulus. 

Nevertheless,  so  great  is  organic  complexity,  when  we 
come  to  take  the  principle  of  association  into  account,  that, 
after  all,  in  developed  organisms,  Miinsterberg  may  be  right 
in  making  the  flexion  and  extension  movements  themselves 
the  direct  basis  of  the  agreeable  and  disagreeable  quale. 
For  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  emotion  that  movements  at  first 
purely  purposive,  serving  utility  or  accommodation  to  stim- 
ulus, themselves  get,  by  association,  to  represent  the  degree 
of  success  or  failure  in  accommodation,  and  so  come  them- 
selves to  give  body  to  the  emotion.  In  like  manner,  these 
flexion  and  extension  movements  may  have  passed,  from  being 
expressive  or  utility  movements,  to  be  the  forerunners  of  the 
condition  which  they  at  first  served  only  to  express.  And  it 
may  well  be  that  they  are  thus  an  intermediate  link  between 
quale  pleasure-pain,  and  sensation  pleasure-pain.  This 
is  supported  by  the  evidence  —  so  far  as  it  goes  —  which 
locates  the  nerve  apparatus  of  sensation  pleasure-pain  in  the 
muscles.  On  this  view,  it  is  for  reporting  flexion  and  ex- 
tension movements  that  this  nervous  apparatus  has  developed ; 
these  flexion  and  extension  movements  standing  in  place  of 
the  pleasure-  and  pain-giving  stimuli  to  which  the  organism 
has  become  accommodated. 

Possibly  the  most  important  question  which  remains  over, 
and  upon  which  the  distinction  now  made  between  original 
and  derived  pain  reactions  seems  to  throw  some  light,  is  that 
which  concerns  the  relations  of  so-called  'systemic'  to  'sin- 
gle-organ' pains.  Theories  divide  on  the  question  whether 
pains  relate  to  the  welfare  of  the  system  as  a  whole  or  to  the 
welfare  —  nourishment,  vitality,  etc.— of  particular  organs. 
And  on  account  of  the  conflicting  evidence  some  throw  over 
the  'welfare'  theory  of  pleasure  and  pain  altogether.  The 


462  Habit  and  Accommodation 

principles  which  we  have  seen  to  be  operative  in  develop- 
ment, show  us,  however,  that  we  are  able  to  reconcile  the  con- 
tradiction, at  least  in  some  degree.  If  sensational  pain  be  a 
specialized  function  with  its  own  motor  reaction,  then  in  it 
we  have  the  single-organ  position  confirmed,  and  are  able  to 
account  for  the  conflicts  which  sometimes  arise  —  as  so  many 
writers,  from  Mill  to  the  present,  have  pointed  out  —  between 
the  welfare  of  the  organism  as  a  whole  and  that  of  the  par- 
ticular organ  or  part.  On  the  other  hand,  the  existence  of  the 
non-sensational  or  quale  pain  still  remains  as  an  index  of 
central  and  deep-seated  vital  conditions,  and  makes  its  own 
claim  to  being  the  original  derivation-form  of  the  pain  con- 
sciousness. Genetically,  we  cannot  begin  life  history  with 
single-organ  pains;  for  apart  from  the  impossible  assump- 
tion, then,  of  differentiated  organs,  such  separate  and 
special  pain  reactions  would  not  take  the  place  of  the  general 
form  of  hedonic  reaction  which  we  have  found  in  organic 
development.  On  the  other  hand,  the  existence  of  special 
sensation  pains  in  connection  with  functions  of  particular 
organs,  and  the  probable  existence  of  pain  nerves,  testify  to 
the  difference,  in  highly  developed  organisms,  of  the  two 
sorts  of  pain.  Moreover,  the  fact  that  pleasure  is  not  so 
evidently  dualistic,  —  not  clearly  sensational  at  all,  —  this  is 
an  additional  evidence  that  the  distinction  between  systemic 
and  single-organ  function  is,  with  respect  to  its  hedonic  as- 
pect, as  it  is  also,  of  course,  in  respect  to  its  very  existence  at 
all,  a  matter  of  evolution. 

And  another  application  may  be  made  of  the  principle  of 
specialization.  One  of  the  objections  most  current  to  the 
view  that  the  original  pain  reaction  took  the  form  of  dimin- 
ished vitality,  suppressions  of  movement,  contractions,  and 
flexions,  is  that  the  facts  show  that  often  pain  reactions -are 
very  violent.  The  struggles  of  an  animal  to  escape  painful 


Organic  Centralization  463 

conditions,  to  rid  itself  of  its  annoyance,  to  defeat  its  enemy 
by  aggressive  and  offensive  action,  all  this  is  notorious.  How, 
it  is  asked,  can  this  be  if  the  function  of  pain,  in  its  relation  to 
movement,  is  essentially  inhibitory?  The  facts  again  are 
indisputable  on  both  sides.  We  have  seen  some  of  the  facts 
hi  the  foregoing  pages.  In  considering  special  emotional 
reactions  and  attitudes,  we  saw  the  variety  and  intensity  of 
those  accompanying  fear,  anger,  etc.,  emotions  of  a  painful 
character.1  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  also  seen  that 
the  child  and  the  little  animal  learn  movements  by  withdraw- 
ing and  suppressing  those  actions  which  issue  in  pain.  How 
can  this  contradiction  be  reconciled?  There  are  two  influ- 
ences at  work,  I  think,  —  both  already  spoken  of,  —  to  which 
the  seeming  contradiction  is  due. 

First,  there  is  the  principle  of  antagonism  which  Darwin 
used  under  the  name  'antithesis'  and  which  we  have  seen  in 
an  earlier  chapter  to  show  itself  in  the  special  form  of  muscular 
antagonism  with  the  corresponding  series  of  antithetic  motor 
attitudes.  Much  of  the  violent  reaction  under  pain  is  the 
positive  use  of  the  muscular  combinations  antagonistic  to 
those  through  which  the  actual  pain  stimulation  would  dis- 
charge. When  in  pain  from  a  movement,  or  from  a  mere 
condition  without  movement,  we  do  not  violently  stimulate 
the  same  movement  which  brought  the  pain,  nor  the  move- 
ments appropriate  to  continue  the  unpleasant  condition. 
These  are  suppressed  by  the  law  of  inhibition  and  withdrawal. 
But  we  do  throw  into  violent  activity  certain  antagonistic  or 
associated  muscular  combinations  whose  action  brings  relief. 
The  real  'excess'  does  not  attach  therefore  to  the  pain  reaction 
as  such,  but  to  the  benefit-bringing  actions  which  are  the 
proved  resources  of  the  organism  when  hi  conditions  of  pain. 

1  Chap.  VIII.,  especially  §  4,  may  be  read  in  connection  with  the 
following  explanations. 


464  Habit  and  Accommodation 

Second,  there  is  no  reason  that  the  pain  reactions  them- 
selves—  the  reactions  of  withdrawal,  retraction,  flexion  — 
should  not  be  at  times  intense.  We  have  seen  that  by  the 
principle  of  centralization,  reactions  of  the  imitative  type, 
whether  they  be  painful  or  pleasurable,  become  habits.  This 
tendency  to  habit,  we  now  also  see,  has  in  the  case  of  pain 
taken  on  a  positive  form  in  pain  as  sensation,  with  probably 
a  nerve  apparatus  of  its  own.  When  this  has  once  happened 
the  response  to  pain  condition  would,  by  the  law  of  dyna- 
mogenesis,  be  intense  when  the  stimulation  is  itself  in- 
tense. This  would  mean  that  in  the  growth  of  the  organism 
it  has  been  advantageous  to  respond  vigorously  to  stimulations 
which  were  damaging  and  so  to  get  rid  of  them.  That  does 
not  disprove  the  contention  that  the  normal  response  to  pain 
is  a  lessened  one.  It  is  as  if  a  man  put  more  money  into  a 
losing  venture  as  the  most  effective  way  to  turn  it  into  a  gain- 
ing venture ;  and  it  simply  means  that  in  business,  as  in  devel- 
opment, it  is  only  at  a  higher  stage  that  certain  complex  con- 
ditions realize  themselves  at  all. 

Putting  these  explanations  together  there  does  not  remain, 
I  think,  much  evidence,  apart  from  those  convulsive  semi- 
pathological  chaotic  writhings  and  twistings  into  which  violent 
physical  pain  may  throw  the  organism,  that  pain  reactions  as 
such  are  ever  expansive  and  aggressive.1  They  may  be  intense, 

1  In  addition  to  these  two  general  reasons  for  the  seeming  antithesis  on 
this  point,  we  should  expect  the  difference  between  'systemic'  and  'single- 
organ'  pains  to  complicate  the  cases  still  further.  For  a  reaction  may  be 
evidently  in  excess  from  one  point  of  view,  and  not  so  from  the  other.  The 
seeming  excess  movements  of  physical  pain  are  generally  in  their  character, 
as  was  said,  those  of  antithetic  habit,  and  so  represent  systemic  methods  of 
defence  and  offence.  The  direct  withdrawals  and  inhibitions,  on  the  con- 
trary, represent  the  more  direct  response  to  the  particular  pain  stimulation 
as  such.  The  whole  case  serves  to  teach  the  lesson  that  no  single  class  of 
facts  derived  from  the  mature  and  complex  organism  should  be  considered 
alone,  or  lead  us  to  prejudge  a  case  in  which  genetic  processes  have  been 


Organic  Centralization  465 

they  may  be  associated  with  all  sorts  of  utility  reactions,  and 
they  may  represent  nothing  but  sheer  mechanical  revolt,  as 
Darwin  long  ago  showed. 

Now  the  same  effect  of  'centralization'  is  seen  in  the 
attention,  as  may  be  gathered  from  the  positions  already 
taken.  Attention  has  been  defined  as  genetically  the 
reverberation  of  the  'excess'  process  as  it  has  become 
fixed  in  habit.  By  the  law  of  ' sensori-motor  association,' 
this  backward  wave  gets  connected  with  all  the  sensory 
processes.  Now  just  in  as  far  as  this  wave  is  the  same 
for  different  sensations,  just  in  so  far  it  tends  to  be  'central- 
ized,' in  a  constant  function  —  integrated  into  a  habit  — 
involving  a  regular  set  of  motor  phenomena,  such  as  the  wrin- 
kling of  the  brows,  setting  of  the  glottis,  etc.,  always  found 
in  acts  of  attention.  The  organism  thus  acquires  a  habit  of 
accommodation,  on  a  higher  level.  This  is  attention.  When 
memory  and  imagination  appear,  this  new  form  of  response 
enables  the  organism  to  throw  itself  into  attitudes  favourable 
to  the  best  reception  and  assimilation  of  material  of  all  kinds. 

Yet  as  with  pain,  so  here.  This  attention-habit,  this  cen- 
tralized function,  is  not  all  that  the  attention  is.  The  original 
excess  function  must  be  kept  in  view.  No  preliminary  setting 
of  attention  is  an  adequate  accommodation  to  an  intellectual 
stimulus,  an  idea  still  to  be  received ;  it  is  adequate  only  to 
hold  stimuli  by  which  it  has  been  before  excited.  Each  new 
accommodation  to  idea  carries  a  motor  excess  discharge  of 
its  own,  and  this  also  enters  into  the  sense  of  attention, 
making  each  act  of  attention,  and  each  sense-type  of  attention, 
different,  as  was  said  above. 

The  terms  of  interaction  of  the  two  principles,  finally, 

concerned ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  enormous  complexity  of  these  genetic 
influences  should  make  us  to  the  last  degree  moderate  and  undogmatic  in  our 
support  of  theories. 
2H 


466  Habit  and  Accommodation 

require  that  the  reaction  maintain  its  stimulus,  and  that  this 
stimulus  again  repeat  the  reaction.  The  one  type  of  reaction, 
therefore,  which  an  organism  must  have,  is  a  'circular'  or 
stimulus-repeating  one.  We  have  found  it  best  to  name  this 
type  of  reaction,  for  purposes  of  psycho-physical  definition, 
IMITATION,  and  to  call  it,  as  a  typical  neurological  function, 
'circular  reaction.'  This  is  the  UNIT,  therefore,  the  essential 
fact,  of  all  motor-development ;  and  this  shows  the  simplicity 
of  the  whole  theory. 

The  place  of  imitation  has  now  been  made  out  in  a  tenta- 
tive way  throughout  the  development  of  the  active  life.  It 
seems  to  be  everywhere.  But  it  is,  of  course,  a  matter  of 
natural  history  that  this  type  of  action  is  of  such  extraordi- 
nary and  unlooked-for  importance.  If  we  grant  a  phylo- 
genetic  development  of  mind,  reaction  of  the  imitative  type, 
as  denned  above,  may  be  considered  the  mode  and  the  only 
mode  of  the  progressive  adaptation  of  the  organism  to  its  en- 
vironment. The  further  philosophical  questions  as  to  the 
nature  of  mind,  its  worth  and  its  dignity,  remain  under 
adjudication.  We  have  learned  too  much  in  modern  philos- 
ophy to  argue  from  the  natural  history  of  a  thing  to  its  ultimate 
constitution  and  meaning  —  and  we  commend  this  considera- 
tion to  the  biologists.  As  far  as  there  is  a  more  general  lesson 
to  be  learned  from  the  considerations  advanced,  it  is  that  we 
should  avoid  just  this  danger,  i.e.  of  interpreting  one  kind  of 
existence  for  itself,  in  an  isolated  way,  without  due  regard  to 
the  other  kinds  of  existence  with  which  its  manifestations  are 
mixed  up. 

The  antithesis,  for  example,  between  the  self  and  the  world  is 
not  a  finished  antithesis  psychologically  considered.  The  self 
is  realized  by  taking  in  'copies'  from  the  world,  and  the  world 
is  enabled  to  set  higher  copies  only  through  the  constant 


Organic  Centralization  467 

reactions  of  the  individual  self  upon  it.  Morally  I  am  as 
much  a  part  of  society  as  physically  I  am  a  part  of  the  world's 
fauna;  and  as  my  body  gets  its  best  explanation  from  the 
point  of  view  of  its  place  in  a  zoological  scale,  so  morally  I 
occupy  a  place  in  the  social  order ;  and  an  important  factor  in 
the  understanding  of  me  is  the  understanding  of  it. 

The  great  question,  which  is  writ  above  all  natural  history 
records,  is,  —  when  put  in  the  phraseology  of  imitation,  — 
What  is  the  final  World-copy,  and  how  did  it  get  itself  set? 


APPENDIX  B1 

CASES  OF  THE  USE  OF  THE  RIGHT  AND  LEFT  HANDS  RESPECTIVELY, 
GATHERED  FROM  THE  REPORT  OF  COLONEL  GARRICK  MALLERY, 
ON  "SIGN  LANGUAGE  AMONG  THE  NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS."2 
BY  PROFESSOR  LESTER  JONES  OF  MIAMI  UNIVERSITY,  OHIO. 

"In  the  main  part  of  Colonel  Mallery's  paper,  where  the  cases 
cited  are  used  as  merely  illustrative  of  the  writer's  own  subject, 
the  following  data  for  the  problem  of  right-handedness  have  been 
obtained :  — 

No.  of  Cases  Left  Hand  Right  Hand  Both  Hands 

cited  used  used  used 

66  i  37  28 

"In  about  a  thousand  illustrations  appended  to  the  paper 
proper,  the  left  hand  is  used  distinctively  alone  twenty-three  times. 

"In  the  same  appendix,  in  a  dialogue  of  a  hundred  and  sixteen 
signs  used,  the  left  hand  acts  distinctively  alone  five  times. 

"In  the  Natei  narrative  of  seventy-five  signs,  the  left  hand  is 
used  distinctively  alone  three  times,  the  right  hand  twenty-seven 
times. 

"In  the  Patricio  narrative  of  sixty-six  signs,  the  left  hand  is 
used  distinctively  alone  three  times,  the  right  hand  twenty  times.8 

"It  is  worth  observing  that  in  the  dialogue  and  two  narratives, 
making  a  total  of  about  three  hundred  signs,  or  less  than  one-third 
of  the  thousand  signs  cited,  we  find  the  left  hand  used  alone  eleven 

1  Appendix  A  (in  the  first  and  second  editions)  is  an  index  of  observations 
recorded  in  the  volume. 

2  First  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,  1879-1880. 

3  In  the  above  series,  only  those  cases  have  been  considered  in  which  the 
circumstances  involved  allow  a  choice  of  either  hand. 

469 


470  Appendix  B 

times,  or  about  one-half  the  full  number  of  times  occurring  in  the 
entire  thousand  cases.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  more 
reflective  the  thought  becomes,  the  more  the  left  hand  figures, 
while  in  the  isolated  more  unpremeditated  forms,  it  is  the  right 
hand  that  invariably  springs  into  action. 

"Two  illustrations  must  suffice  to  show  the  general  preference 
of  the  right  hand  over  the  left.  In  describing  Indians  conversing 
about  the  camp-fire,  Mr.  Mallery  writes  (p.  340):  'Two  Indians 
whose  blankets  are  closely  held  to  their  bodies  by  the  left  hand, 
which  is  necessarily  rendered  unavailable  for  gesture,  will  severally 
thrust  the  right  from  beneath  the  protecting  fold,  and  converse 
freely.  The  same  is  true  when  one  hand  of  each  holds  the  bridle 
of  a  horse.'  Again,  this  preference  is  well  shown  in  the  gesture 
sign  for  sunrise  (p.  371):  'The  forefinger  of  the  right  hand  is 
crooked  to  represent  the  sun's  disk,  and  pointed  or  extended  to 
the  left,  then  slightly  elevated. 

"'In  this  connection  it  may  be  noted  that  when  the  gesture  is 
carefully  made  in  open  country,  the  pointing  would  generally  be 
to  the  east,  and  the  body  turned  so  that  its  left  would  be  in  that 
direction.' 

"The  two-hand  movement  in  making  a  sign  is  used,  perhaps,  as 
much  as  the  right  hand  alone;  yet  in  almost  every  case  of  the 
double-hand  movement  the  right  hand  takes  the  initiative  and 
plays  the  active  role,  with  the  left  as  merely  supplementary.  For 
example,  the  sign  gesture  for  'hard'  is  made  thus:  open  the  left 
hand  and  strike  against  it  several  times  with  the  right. 

"Again,  in  making  the  sign  gesture  for  'done,'  hold  the  extended 
left  hand  horizontally  before  the  body,  fingers  pointing  to  the  right, 
and  cut  edgewise  downward,  with  extended  right  hand,  past  the 
tips  of  the  left. 

"Many  signs  appearing  to  be  made  by  the  left  hand  alone,  on 
closer  scrutiny  can  be  included  in  the  two-hand  movement.  For 
example,  in  the  expression  'three  white  men,'  'white  men'  is 
made  first  with  right  hand  alone;  but  to  convey  the  meaning,  the 
right  hand  must  persist  until  the  sign  for  three  is  made,  which 
remains  for  the  left  hand  to  do.  It  is  in  reality  a  double-hand 


Appendix  C  4?I 

movement  with  the  left  to  be  used  as  necessity  requires   supple- 
mentary to  the  right." 

NOTE  BY  THE  AUTHOR.  —  It  is  evident  that  this  report  supports  the  view 
that  the  right  hand  was  pre-eminently  the  'expressive'  member  in  pre-historic 
times.  The  common  signs  among  different  tribes,  found  also  in  deaf-mute 
sign  language,  show  that  many  of  these  forms  of  expression  are  not  late  con- 
ventions, but  rather  matter  of  real  aboriginal  usage.  If,  then,  they  date  back 
to  the  period  before  the  development  of  speech,  we  have  much  reason  for 
believing  that  right-handedness  is  originally  a  one-sided  expressive  function 
Cf.  Chap.  IV.,  §  2,  above. 


APPENDIX  C1 

I 

ON  PROFITING  BY  EXPERIENCE  AND  IMITATION 

We  may  illustrate  in  the  field  of  individual  experience.  Soon 
after  birth  a  young  chick  begins  to  learn  as  we  say  'by  experience.' 
He  pecks  instinctively  at  all  objects  of  appropriate  size,  and  by 
trial  learns  those  which  are  good  to  eat  and  those  which  should  be 
avoided.  How  can  this  be  called  imitative?  In  the  first  place, 
we  may  say  there  is  in  consciousness  only  the  visual  image  of  the 
object,  and  the  native  reaction  of  pecking  follows  upon  it.  The 
result  of  this  is  to  give  the  chick  either  a  good  or  a  bad  taste.  In 
the  former  case  the  experience  of  the  good  taste  becomes  asso- 
ciated with  the  sight  of  the  object  —  say  a  caterpillar  —  so  that 
at  future  meetings  with  the  same  sort  of  caterpillar,  the  instinctive 
tendency  to  peck  is  reinforced  by  the  imitative  tendency  to  repeat 
the  good  taste.  This  reinforcement  tends  to  modify  and  even  to 
supersede  the  original  instinctive  manner  of  reacting,  as  is  readily 
seen  in  the  way  the  expression  of  the  instinct  of  pecking  is  modified 
by  the  experience.  In  the  other  case  —  that  of  a  bad  taste,  let  us 
say,  using  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan's2  example  of  the  taste  of  a 

1  In  the  foreign  editions  this  is  matter  added  on  p.  290,  to  which  it  may 
be  considered  a  footnote,  illustrating  the  formulation  there  given  in  Italics. 

2  Habit  and  Instinct,  pp.  41  f.     I  may  also  illustrate  this  principle  by 
replying  to  a  criticism  by  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  of  the  definition  of  imi- 
tation given  above,  i.e.  a  reaction  which  tends  to  repeat  or  reinstate  its  own 


472  Appendix  C 

cinnabar  caterpillar  —  the  effect  of  imitation  is  the  reverse.  With 
the  sight  of  the  worm  now  comes  up  by  association  the  bad  taste. 
The  imitative  reaction  is  now  to  avoid  the  taste ;  this  tends  to  keep 
the  instinct  of  pecking  in  check;  and  by  repetition  gradually 
suppresses  it  altogether  in  the  particular  case  of  this  worm.  But 
now  further,  in  both  cases,  the  visual  presentation  of  the  caterpillar 
stands  by  association  in  the  place  of  the  taste,  as  the  terminus  of 
the  appropriate  reaction,  which  thus  loses  its  original  character  as  a 
reflex  and  also  its  acquired  character  as  an  imitation.  The  case 
may  be  taken  as  a  typical  one ;  since  it  illustrates,  first,  the  acquisi- 
tion of  experience  by  the  use  of  native  reactions ;  second,  the  modi- 
fication and  differentiation  of  these  native  reactions  by  imitation 
and  association ;  and  third,  the  continued  use  of  these  modified  re- 
actions in  connection  with  the  original  objective  stimuli,  through 
substitution. 

And  the  full  genetic  application  of  the  theory  would  account  for 
the  existence  of  the  native  pecking  reflex  in  the  chick  as  a  selection 
of  variations  coincident  with  imitative  accommodations  found 
useful  to  individuals.1 

II2 

FLUCTUATIONS   OF   ATTENTION 

An  interesting  confirmation  of  the  theory  of  attention  as  motor 
phenomenon  is  afforded  by  recent  experiments  of  "  fluctuations  of 

stimulus.  Professor  Morgan  cites  the  chick  which  crouches  or  runs  away 
when  seeing  others  do  so;  this  is  imitative,  although  not  reproducing  the 
chick's  stimulation  (in  that  it  cannot  see  its  own  actions)  but  only  the 
'onlooker's'  (loc.  cit.,  p.  168).  The  answer  is  that  in  such  cases  there  is  an 
imitative  reproduction  by  the  chick  of  its  own  movement  sensations  which  are 
associated  with  the  sight  of  the  equivalent  movements  in  others.  The  latter 
(visual)  stimulations  are  substituted  in  whole  or  part  for  the  muscular  sensa- 
tions. Accordingly  the  action  does  reproduce  both  the  chick's  stimulation 
(muscular)  and  the  onlooker's  (visual).  This  makes  untenable  Professor 
Morgan's  distinction  (loc.  cit.,  p.  170  f.)  between  'imitation*  (instinctive) 
and  'copying'  (intelligent  reproduction  by  attention  to  the  copy),  although  it 
is  often  convenient  to  observe  it. 

1  Cf.  also  the  cases  given  above,  Chap.  X.,  §  3.  *  Note  to  p.  440. 


Appendix  C  473 

the  attention."  It  has  been  found  by  Dunlap  (Psychological 
Review,  XL,  1904,  pp.  308,  319)  not  only  that  a  barely  audible 
continuous  sound  has  periods  of  inaudibility,  but  that  a  just  in- 
audible discontinuous  sound  reports  its  own  breaks  in  some  way, 
even  though  it  does  not  become  audible.  As  I  interpret  these 
results,  —  variations  in  the  concentration  processes  of  attention 
result  in  varying  intensities  of  the  sound,  even  to  inaudibility ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  interruptions  in  an  inaudible  sound  produce 
variations  in  the  reflex  concentration  processes  which  are  felt 
and  remarked  even  though  the  sound  does  not  itself  come  above  the 
audible  threshold.  In  other  words,  the  sensori-motor  association 
is  functionally  and  cerebrally  so  close  that  it  works  its  results  as 
between  stimulus  and  attentive  response  whether  or  not  one  or 
both  of  the  terms  be  clearly  conscious,  subconscious,  or  altogether 
hidden  in  a  mass  of  irrelevant  happenings  (as  in  cases  of  distrac- 
tion). It  shows  the  operation  of  dynamogenesis  in  this  particular 
response,  the  attention,  of  the  delicacy  shown  for  other  responses 
by  the  cases  of  '  suggestion '  reported  above  (in  Chapter  VI.). 


INDEX 


Aboulia,  378  ff. 

Accommodation,  effects  of,  21;  sugges- 
tion as  A.,  1 61  f . ;  A.  and  Habit,  203  f ., 
277;  summary  of,  432  ff. 

Adaptation,  organic,  171  ff. 

Agraphia,  378  ff. 

Amusia,  298  ff. 

Analogies,  of  development,  14  ff. 

Animal,  see  Phylogenesis,  Memory, 
Recapitulation,  Attention,  Grega- 
riousness. 

Antithesis,  law  of,  229  ff. 

Aphasia,  369  ff. 

Apperception,  theory  of,  292  ff. 

Assimilation,  theory  of,  292  ff. 

Association  of  ideas,  physical  basis  of, 
264  ff. ;  origin  of,  286  ff. ;  sensori- 
motor,  436  ff. 

Attention,  its  genetic  formula,  297  f., 
302  f.,  375  f. ;  origin  of,  428  ff. ;  vol- 
untary, 428  f.;  reflex,  435  f.;  devel- 
opment of,  436  ff. 

Attitudes,  motor,  origin  of,  209  ff.;  ha- 
bitual, 226  ff. 

Auto-suggestion,  131  f. 

Avenarius,  R.,  322  f. 

Bain,  A.,  172,  176  ff.;   267,  note;   278, 

339,  note. 

Balfour,  F.  M.,  26,  34,  194. 
Bashfulness,  139  ff. 
Bastian,  291,  470. 
Bateson,  195,  note. 
Belief,  307  f.,  447  *• 
Bernheim,  155. 

Binet,  A.,  38  f.,  51,  258,  363,  380  ff. 
Bradley,  445,  note. 
Brazier,  90,  420  ff. 
Broadbent,  99,  note. 
Brown-S6quard,  69,  note. 

'Centralization,'  organic,  457  ff. 

Charcot,  156. 

Chevreul,  250. 

Child  Study,  i  ff.,  34  ff. 

Circular  reaction,  249  ff. 

Class  recognition,  302  ff. 


Clifford,  1 8. 

Colour,  perception  of,  by  infants,  37  ff., 
49  ff- 

Concept,  310  ff. 

Conception,  origin  of,  306  ff. 

Consciousness,  the  origin  of,  197  ff. 

Contrary  suggestions,  137  f. 

Control,  by  suggestion,  136;  volun- 
tary, 448  ff. 

Gushing,  F.  H.,  65,  note. 

Darwin,  C.,  185,  195,  228,  273,  317. 

Deliberative  suggestion,  120. 

Development,  analogies  of,  14  ff.; 
theories  of,  161  ff. ;  summary  on,  452 
ff. ;  D.  of  the  several  functions,  see 
Memory,  Attention,  Association, 
Speech,  Handwriting,  Song,  etc. 

Dextrality,  56  ff. 

Distance,  perception  of,  by  infants,  48  ff. 

Drawings,  of  children,  78  ff. 

Dreams,  as  emotion  stimulus,  130. 

Dynamogenic  method  of  child  study, 
35  ff- 

Dynamogenesis,  41,  157  ff.,  214. 

Eimer,  256  f. 

'Eject,'  17,  119  ff. 

Emotion,  stimulated  by  dreams,   130; 

expressions    of,    an,    etc.;     genetic 

theory  of,  316  ff. 

Ethical  emotion,  genesis  of,  324  ff. 
Exaltation  of  the  senses,  32  f. 
'Excess,'  law  of,  170  f.,  179. 
Expression,  functions  of,  63  ff.;  motor 

E.,  209  ff.;  emotional  E.,  211  ff. 

Fechner,  63. 

Fer6,  Ch.,  131,  note;   376  ff. 
Foster,  M.,  21  f. 
Franckl-Hochwart,  68,  410  ff. 
Franklin,  Mrs.  C.  L.,  41,  55,  note. 
Functional  selection,  95. 

Galton,  195,  note. 

Garbini,  38. 

General  notion,  origin  of,  312  ff. 


475 


476 


Index 


Gley,  42. 

Goldscheider,  90,  note;   95  ff. 

Groos,  247;  279. 

Habit,  effects  of,  19;  Suggestion  as  H., 
161  ff. ;  H.  and  Accommodation,  203 
f.;  law  of  associated  H.,  228  ff.;  as 
basis  of  unity,  271;  in  memory,  277 
ff.;  summary  on,  452  ff. 

Handwriting,  origin  of,  88  ff. 

Hedonic,  consciousness,  167  f.;  H.  ex- 
pression, 225  ff. 

Hegel,  328,  note. 

Heredity,  193  ff. 

Hodge,  257,  note. 

Hoffding,  H.,  179,  423  f.,  439;  447, 
note. 

Huestis,  C.  H.,  122. 

Hypnotic  suggestion,  149  ff. 

Hysteria,  383  ff. 

Identity,  principle  of,  307  f. 

Ideo-motor  suggestion,  123  ff. 

Imagination,  origin  of,  276  ff. 

Imitation,  tracery,  78  ff. ;  in  infants,  124 
ff.;  simple  and  persistent,  125  f.,  357 
f. ;  organic,  249  ff. ;  conscious,  276 
fif.;  in  animals,  281 ;  classification  of, 
332  fif.;  plastic,  335  ff.;  method  of 
observing,  350  ff.;  persistent,  355  ff.; 
self,  404. 

Infancy,  27  ff. 

Infant;  I.  Psychology,  i  ff.;  new 
method  of  studying,  34  ff. ;  colour 
perception  of,  37  ft.;  distance  per- 
ception of,  48  ff.;  right-handedness 
in,  56  ff.;  movements  of,  78;  draw- 
ings of,  48  ff. 

Inhibitory  suggestion,  135  ff. 

'  Introjection,'  theory  of,  322. 

James,  W.,  62,  73  f.,  224,  233,  354,  357, 

445- 
Janet,   Pierre,    102;    338,   note;    359, 

note;  376  ff. 
Jastrow,  j.,  42,  178. 
Jennings,  258,  262,  433. 
Jones,    Lester,    65,    note;     Appendix 

B. 
Judgment,  Brentano's  view  of,  307. 

v.  Kries,  422  ff. 
Kussmaul,  79. 


Ladd,  G.  T.,  76,  note;    128. 
Lange's  theory  of  emotion,  217. 
Left-handedness,  56  ff. 
Lehmann,  A.,  40,  299. 
Lichtheim,  392  ff. 
Liegeois,  154,  note. 

Magendie,  42. 

Mallery,  65,  note;   Appendix  B. 

Mantegazza,  228. 

Marsden,  R.  E.,  52. 

Marshall,  A.  M.,  19  f. 

Marshall,  H.  R.,  233. 

Mazel,  62,  note. 

Memory,    physical    basis   of,    264   ff.; 

origin  of,  276  ff. 
Method  of  child  study,  34  fif. 
Meynert,  168  f. 

Micro-organisms,  behaviour  of,  257  ff. 
Minot,  C.  S.,  23;  202;  263,  273. 
Mirror- writing,  95. 
Moll,  107. 
Morgan,  Lloyd,  74;  120;  202;  262;  274; 

283,  421. 
Mosso,  228. 
Motor  square,  109. 
Movements,  of  infants,  78  fif. 
Muller,  Max,  34. 
Miinsterberg,  44,  note;   63,  note;   168, 

note. 
Music,  faculty  of,  67  f . ;  398. 

Nancy  school,  on  hypnotism,  156. 

Natural  selection,  place  of,  in  develop- 
ment, 163  ff. 

Neo-Darwinian  theory  of  heredity,  193 
ff. 

Neo-Lamarckian  theory  of  heredity,  193 


Ochorowicz,  107. 

O'Connor,  J.  T.,  62,  note;    81. 

Ogle,  71,  note. 

Ontogenesis,  i  ff. 

Organic,  selection,  24,  165   f.,  283;    O. 

imitation,  249  fif. 
Osborn,  H.  F.,  21,  note. 

Pain,  suggestions  of,  136  f. ;  its  nervous 
analogue,  167  f.;  Bain's  and  Spen- 
cer's views  of,  175  f.;  as  sensation, 
458  ff. 

Paris  school,  on  hypnotism,  150. 


Index 


477 


Parrott,  A.  G.,  79,  109,  128. 

Passy,  84,  293,  396. 

Paulhan,  436. 

'Persistent  imitation,'  125  f.,  355  ff. 

Personality,  suggestions  of,  112  ff.;   its 

growth,  318  ff.;    141  ff.,  319  ff. 
Pfeffer,  259  ff. 
Pfliiger,  263. 
Phylogenesis,   12  ff. ;    of  memory  and 

imagination,  286  ff. ;   of  volition,  366 

Pick,  393  ff. 

Pitch,  recognition  of,  419  ff. 

'Plastic  imitation,'  335  ff. 

Play,  247. 

Pleasure,  its  nervous  analogue,  167  f. ; 

Spencer-Bain   view   of,    175    f.;     as 

sensation,  458  f. 

Preyer,  W.,  38  f.,  51  f.,  125,  281. 
'Project,'  17  f.,  112  ff.,  319  ff. 
Psychology,  race,  12  ff.;   infant,  i  ff. 

Race  psychology,  12  ff. 

Rapport,  hypnotic,  152. 

Recapitulation,  theory  of,  19  ff.;  modi- 
fications of,  20  ff. 

Recognition,  theory  of,  292  ff.;  class- 
R.,  302  ff.;  of  pitch,  419  ff.;  abso- 
lute, 449  ff- 

•Ree' volution,'  Jacksonian,  387  f. 

Ribot,  Th.,  106. 

Right-handedness,  origin  of,  56  ff. 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  68,  70;  188, 199,  note; 
206  ff.,  280  ff. 

Royce,  J.,  313,  note;  322,  note;  329; 
339- 

Schema,  310. 

Schneider,  107. 

Sedgwick,  A.,  30  f.,  34. 

Seglas,  412  ff. 

Selection,  natural,  163  f.;  organic,  165  f. 

Self,  growth  of  notion  of,  i  r  2  ff . ;  i4iff.; 

emotion  of,  319  ff. 
Sense-exaltation,  1 24  f . 
'  Sensori-motor  association,'  436  ff. 
Sentiment,  growth  of,  316  ff. 
Shinn,  Miss  M.  W.,  38,  note;    51. 
'Short-cuts,'  theory  of,  19  ff. 
Sighele,  267  f. 
Sleep,  suggestions  of,  in  ff. 
Social  sense,  324. 


Soltmann,  41;  400  ff. 

Song,  416  ff. 

Speech,  369  ff.,  409  ff. 

Spencer,  H.,  173  ff.,  199,  note. 

Spontaneity,  Bain's  doctrine  of,  173  ff. 

Starr,  M.  A.,  68. 

Stevenson,  125. 

Strieker,  411  ff. 

Subconscious  suggestion,  128  ff. 

Sufficient  reason,  307  f. 

Suggestion,  100  ff.;  physiological  S., 
104  f.;  sensori-motor,  109  ff.;  of 
sleep,  etc.,  in  ff.;  of  personality, 
112  ff.;  deliberative,  120  ff. ;  ideo- 
motor,  123  ff. ;  subconscious  adult, 
128  ff.;  of  tunes,  128  ff.;  auto-S.,  131 
f. ;  inhibitory,  135;  pain-S.,  126  f. ; 
control-S.,  136;  S.  of  the  contrary, 
137  ff.;  hypnotic,  149  ff. 

Sully,  34;  278. 

Sympathy,  genesis  of,  316  f. 

Tarde,  G.,  267  f.;   330,  note;  337  f. 

Thought,  origin  of,  306  ff. 

Tonnies,  268,  330. 

Tracery  imitation,   78  ff. 

Tunes,  suggestions  of,  128  ff.;  internal, 

416  ff. 
Types,   mental,   410  ff.;    of   reaction, 

442. 

Unity,  sense  of,  271. 

Variation,  30. 

Variations,  in  ontogeny,  19  ff. 

Verworn,  Max,  257  f. 

Vierordt,  56,  note;  63;  70;  79,  note; 
134- 

Volition,  origin  of,  349  ff.;  analysis  of, 
350  ff.;  typical  case  of,  355  ff.;  phylo- 
genesis of,  366  ff. 

Wallaschek,  135,  418;  427;  440,  note. 

Waller,  A.  D.,  393,  note. 

Ward,  J.,  164;  190,  note;  301,  note. 

Warner,  37. 

Weber,  E.  H.,  63. 

Weismann,  24. 

Wilson,  SirD.,  57,  note;  62,  note;  70  f. 

Wundt,  102,  293. 

Ziehen,  102,  432  f. 


By   PROFESSOR   BALDWIN 

Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology 

"  The  completion  of  this  enterprise  is  a  notable  event  in  fee  history  of  philosoph- 
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phylogeny,  and  between  organic  and  social  evolution,  on  a  basis  that  should  be 
satisfactory  at  once  to  the  biologist  and  the  philosopher."  —  A'ature. 

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SOCIAL  AND  ETHICAL 
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the  Danish  Academy : 

"  This  extended  and  profound  work  commences  with  an  inquiry 
into  the  relations  subsisting  between  the  individual  and  society. 
.  .  .  Occasionally  the  author  makes  contributions,  as  new  as  they 
are  interesting,  to  the  psychology  of  the  child,  and  proves  himself 
the  same  skillful  observer  in  finding  identical  or  analogous  move- 
ments in  different  phases  of  conscious  life.  By  the  original,  pro- 
found, and  penetrating  use  which  he  makes  of  the  psychological 
and  genetic  method,  he  has  really  cleared  up  the  notions  which 
must  be  used  in  the  study  of  this  question,  and  thereby  made 
much  progress  toward  its  solution.  .  .  ." 

"  One  of  the  latest  and  not  least  remarkable  products  of  Ameri- 
can thought.  It  is  a  bit  of  close  reasoning  based  upon  vigilant 
observation.  ...  A  vast  amount  of  philosophic  learning  and  of 
scientific  research  —  both  of  a  very  rare  kind  —  has  gone  to  the 
making  of  this  remarkable  book."  —  The  Spectator. 

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BALDWIN     ON     MENTAL     DEVELOPMENT 

social  questions,  and  a  THINKER  OF  THE  FIRST  RANK.    It  constitutes 
a  most  formal  and  severe  refutation  of  individualism." 

Prof.  MORSELU,  in  Rivista  di  Files.  Sclent. 

"  A  systematic  history  of  the  mind  of  the  individual  as  a  social 
being  has  hitherto  been  wanting  in  English,  and,  if  only  on  this 
account,  the  work  of  Prof.  Baldwin  before  us  would  be  highly 
acceptable.  But  it  may  safely  be  added  that  no  more  important 
work  on  the  psychological  foundations  of  ethics  and  sociology  has 
appeared  for  many  years,  certainly  since  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen's  book 
on  ethics."  —  Prof.  S.  ALEXANDER,  in  the  Manchester  Guardian. 

"Prof.  Baldwin  of  Princeton  University  here  follows  up  his 
admirable  volume  on  Mental  Development  in  the  Child  and  the 
Race  with  a  '  Study  in  Social  Psychology '  of  the  first  importance 
to  students  of  ethics,  psychology,  and  sociology.  These  terms 
indicate  but  faintly  the  extraordinary  freshness  and  power  with 
which  Prof.  Baldwin  has  worked  out  the  'dialectic  of  personal 
growth'  and  the  'dialectic  of  social  growth'  in  their  incessant 
reaction.  .  .  .  The  individual  of  the  older  psychology  disappears 
before  this  more  profound  and  searching  analysis,  which  proves 
the  existence  of  social  elements  in  the  person  from  start  to  finish. 
Sociology  thus  acquires  a  scientific  basis  which  the  older  concep- 
tions could  not  give  to  it.  ...  It  belongs  with  the  best  work  of 
the  most  advanced  psychologists  of  to-day,  and  the  ablest  psycho- 
logical sociologists.  Every  sociologist  who  would  plough  a  fruit- 
ful field  must  hereafter  acknowledge  a  great  indebtedness  to  this 

VERY  PERSISTENT  AND  SAGACIOUS  THINKER." 

—  N.  P.  OILMAN,  in  The  Literary  World. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  this  book  we  have  a  valuable  contri- 
bution towards  the  literature  of  a  problem  which  may  perhaps  be 
considered  the  problem  of  the  age  —  the  problem,  that  is,  of  the 
relation  between  the  individual  and  society." 

—  H.  BOSANQUET,  in  Mind. 

"  It  is  by  its  vigor  of  method  and  power  of  argument  that  this 


BALDWIN     ON      MENTAL     DEVELOPMENT 

book,  like  the  earlier  one,  commands  the  attention  of  the  reader. 
We  find  in  it  the  most  varied  applications  of  the  principle  of  imi- 
tation .  .  .  and  the  study  of  these  applications  gives  the  author 
occasion  for  the  most  ingenious  insights  and  the  most  original 
views.  The  chapters  on  genius,  art,  play,  the  action  of  crowds, 
are  especially  remarkable.  A  thousand  facts  of  which  we  had 
never  before  seen  the  interest  appear  in  a  new  light  under  his 
criticism."  —  M.  HAVARD,  in  Revue  de  Met.  et  Morale. 

'"  What  we  have  in  this  work  is  a  treatment  of  social  psychology 
so  profound,  so  original,  so  striking  in  its  results,  that  it  cannot 
fail  to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  future  both  of  sociological  and  of 
psychological  thought.  .  .  .  The  child  is  examined  in  his  mental 
development,  and  the  social  results  reached  are  as  rich  as  they 
must  be  astonishing  to  one  who  has  hitherto  failed  to  approach 
problems  of  society  from  this  simple  point  of  view.  One  is  re- 
minded of  Columbus  and  his  egg ;  also  the  thought  occurs  that  a 
little  child  is  still  leading  us  into  the  truth. 

"The  most  impressive  feature  of  Prof.  Baldwin's  work  to  one 
thinking  of  it  as  a  whole  is  the  new  emphasis  laid  upon  social 
forces.  The  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  contury  viewed  exter- 
nal nature  as  the  principal  thing  to  be  considered  in  a  study  of 
society,  and  not  society  itself.  The  great  force  in  society  was 
extraneous  to  society.  But  according  to  the  philosophy  of  our 
times,  as  it  finds  expression  in  Prof.  Baldwin's  work,  the  chief 
forces  working  in  society  are  truly  social  forces,  that  is  to  say, 
they  are  immanent  in  society  itself.  The  importance  of  this 
change  can  scarcely  be  overestimated. 

"  Prof.  Baldwin's  work  is  one  which  no  student  of  society  can 
afford  to  neglect.  It  is  one  which  will  prove  helpful  to  the 
teacher,  and  must  profoundly  influence  the  preacher  who  grasps 
its  import.  It  gives  us  a  social  philosophy  which  makes  possible 
a  rational  and  helpful  discussion  of  the  problems  of  the  day. 
Prof.  Baldwin  has  already  accomplished  great  things,  and  from 
him  still  greater  things  may  be  expected  in  the  future." 

—  Prof.  RICHARD  T.  ELY,  in  The  Expositor. 


BALDWIN'S 

HANDBOOK  OF  PSYCHOLOGY. 

VOL.   I.     SENSES   AND  INTELLECT. 

By  JAMES  MARK  BALDWIN,  Professor  in  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
xiv+343pp.      8vo.      Second  Edition.      Teachers' price,  &r.  6^.,  net;  $i.So. 

VOL.  II.      FEELING   AND  WILL. 

xii  +  394  pp.    8vo.    Teachers'  price,  8s.  6d.t  net;  $  2.00. 


Revne  Philosophiqne.— "An  excellent  treatise  on  Psychology,  superior,  and 
much  superior,  to  perhaps  any  other  that  we  know.  ...  It  is  profound  without 
losing  in  clearness,  and  complete  without  being  too  long." 

Nature.  —  "  Well  arranged,  carefully  thought  out,  clearly  and  tersely  written,  it 
will  be  welcomed  in  this  country  as  it  has  been  welcomed  in  America." 

Mind  (London).  —  "  It  is  interesting  to  see  the  scholastic  petrifaction  of  Aristotle 
which,  in  various  ways,  has  been  handed  on  or  restored  in  modern  times  .  .  . 
breaking  up  under  the  influence  of  independent  thought  or  new  knowledge.  The 
opportunity  may  be  seized  (2d  ed.)  to  recommend  the  book  with  some  more 
emphasis  as  a  very  serviceable  manual  for  students." 

The  Nation.  — "  Taken  as  a  whole  it  is  about  the  best  we  know." 

Revista  de  filosofia  scientifica.  —  "  Uniting  with  great  ability  the  new  and  the 
old,  and  making  room  for  the  results  of  the  experimental  method  within  the  more 
refined  outlines  of  the  classical  scheme,  he  has  succeeded  in  producing  a  work 
on  Psychology  which  is  valuable  and  noteworthy,  especially  as  an  attempt  at  the 
conciliation  of  the  two  schools." 

Friedrich  Jodl  in ZEITSCHRIFT  FUR  PHILOS.  UND  PHILOS.  KRITIK.— "A merit 
of  the  work  of  J.  M.  B.  is  that  it  maintains  the  standpoint  of  exact  method.  .  .  . 
Most  of  the  chapters  are  rich  in  material,  terse  and  vigorous  in  form,  logical  in 
arrangement.  The  whole  thoroughly  serves  its  purpose  as  an  exponent  of  the 
educational  literature  of  Psychology  in  which  the  Americans  and  English  are  far 
ahead  of  us,  and  which  makes  for  higher  culture  in  general" 

Oxford  Magazine.  —  "Senses  and  Intellect  is  the  best  manual  we  have  seen, 
and  we  look  forward  to  the  companion  volume." 

Manchester  Guardian.  —  "  A  noteworthy  addition  to  psychological  literature." 

Academy.  — "  To  those  in  search  of  a  general  systematic  account  of  mental 
phenomena,  thoroughly  informed,  and  embodying  the  results  of  the  most  recent 
inquiry,  Professor  Baldwin's  '  Handbook '  may  be  most  cordially  commended. 
It  is  indeed  just  the  book  a  genuine  student  needs." 

Scotsman.  —  "The  work  is  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  that  have  appeared  in 
recent  times  to  vindicate  the  claims  and  establish  the  position  of  Psychology  as  an 
independent  science.  .  .  .  The  book  is  certainly  a  most  able  one,  and  one  which 
cannot  fail  to  make  its  mark  as  a  contribution  to  psychological  study." 


BALDWIN'S 

ELEMENTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY. 

By  JAMES  MARK  BALDWIN,  Professor  in  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
xvi  +  372  pp.  I2mo.  Teachers'  price,  "js.  ;  $  1.50. 

Mind.  — "  We  congratulate  Professor  Baldwin  on  having  succeeded  in  his  main 
aim.  He  has  produced  a  really  good  text-book  for  elementary  classes,  presenting 
the  newest  essentials  of  the  science  in  a  single  compact  volume  at  reasonable  cost." 

University  Correspondent.  —  "  It  is  on  the  whole  a  good  piece  of  work,  and  we 
do  not  know  an  elementary  book  on  psychology  which  we  would  prefer  to  this  for 
the  use  of  a  beginner." 

G.  M.  Duncan,  Professor  in  Vale  University,  in  PSYCHOLOGICAL  REVIEW.  — 
"  We  regard  it  on  the  whole  as  the  best  elementary  text-book  on  psychology  now 
before  the  public.  It  is  written  from  the  scientific  standpoint,  and  in  a  thoroughly 
scientific  spirit,  by  one  versed  in  the  literature  and  acquainted  with  the  latest 
advances  of  the  science." 

Journal  of  Education  (London).  —  "  We  doubt  if  a  better  introduction  to  men- 
tal science  has  yet  been  written." 

Lloyd  Morgan,  in  NATURE.  —  "It  appears  to  us  to  possess  the  great  merit  of 
giving  abundant  evidence  of  independent  thought  and  treatment.  It  will,  in  the 
hands  of  senior  students,  stimulate  them  to  thought  and  criticism ;  such  criticism 
as  the  teacher  who  is  in  earnest  welcomes  like  a  breath  of  keen  fresh  air." 

Revista  critica  dc  filosofia.  —  "  This  book  is  full  of  exact  and  finished  analysis, 
replete  with  facts,  lucid  in  style  and  arrangement.  We  do  not  hesitate  to  recom- 
mend its  translation  [into  Italian]." 


LONDON:  NEW  YORK: 

MACMILLAN  &  Co.,  LTD.    HENRY  HOLT  &  Co. 


Fragments  in  Philosophy  and  Science. 

By  J.  MARK  BALDWIN,  Professor  in  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
8vo.  #2.50  net  (postage  18  cents). 

"The  present  volume  cannot  fail  to  impress  one  with  the  extent,  variety,  and 
richness  of  the  writer's  philosophical  work.  The  future  historian,  a  generation  or 
two  hence,  who  writes  of  the  philosophy  of  the  present  age,  will  find  in  this  volume 
no  small  aid  in  tracing  the  development  of  Professor  Baldwin's  philosophical 
thought."  —  Professor  French,  in  The  Philosophical  Review, 


NEW  YORK: 
SCRI  BNERS. 

LONDON:  NlMMO. 
4 


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